A Promise
The pages left ring out a song of emptiness -
space that wants not to be held,
but led
along the maze that is my mental cityscape
- no, forest, no, concrete.
Whichever terrain, we know nothing about where the light comes from,
only that it does
and reliably so it ushers in the way out and through
so we are always falling, folding, returning -
in pleasure and pain -
to ourselves -
flesh, fingertips, the ache of wanting -
I rise from the ash.
You cannot hold me.
This cityscape, a jungle inferno.
My lungs, dipping down into the relief of water.
Climate, light and moisture.
I’ve been told what it is not
the mark I must make under the spell of surrender
comes easy now
for I do not own nor push
I purge
burrs along the saltwater's edge
I stick and seed through hell on earth
until birth renders me a mother
father of my mistaken love
like lilies.
A tiny ecosystem emerges
collapses into space between my toes
rests on my shoulder
a promise -
a bloom in turquoise the size of my pinkie nail
touches down like a butterfly in the shadow of my belly button
whispers “you are not done”
not even close
I know
The sky told me so.
Told me to come down and lay my body prostrate on bramble
in an act of curiosity,
a sign of what I am not -
so I might give -
all I am.
AHNIKA WOOD, Photography Credit: Karina Rovira, Shaye Garrigan