Photograph by Amy Hart
Grandmother said grief rearranges the bones,
but mine simply tremble when it rains.
I hear them whisper names
like they’re reading from a broken ledger.
There’s a vein in my wrist
that pulses in Morse —
sometimes I think it’s trying
to send him home.
I keep a jar of marbles in the cupboard,
each one a soul I didn’t save.
When I shake them, they grate against glass
like teeth learning a new language.
Last night, I dreamt I was born again
as a heartbeat in the wrong chest.
I woke to my own pulse
pounding against its cage.
What is the body, if not
an echo that can’t leave the room?
What is survival,
if not the longest translation of pain?
The mirror doesn’t answer.
It only mouths my silence back.
Every day I practice
without leaving fingerprints.