I still wonder what became of you,
almost child, assortment of elements –
if you linger somewhere, nothing lost
and nothing gained, an equation
only. The red line of you faded
to memory, released in blood –
the red tide of me flowing you
seaward, unbearing you forth.
Are you nowhere now, formless
flotsam, a nameless nothing? Or
are you living a thousand lives
with a thousand names – the matter
of you in each glimmering fish scale
and foil scrap? Years before you
I nearly failed chemistry – there were
too many kinds of bonds for my
mind to carry. I couldn’t hold it,
it wouldn’t stay in me, things went
awry – and perhaps in the end this is
all we ever are, this matter of us
in its ongoing making and breaking –
still, I remember you; somehow
this body, this matter, remembers:
how little we knew of you in your
almost rooting, and how knowing of
you was almost too much to bear.
Image: photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Chemical Pregnancy - August 6, 2024
- Love Song - July 16, 2021
- New England February - February 28, 2015
Beautiful, painful truthful. Anyone who has had an almost child will relate.