Shattered

In reaction to reading ‘The Glass and the Bowl’ by Louise Edrich in a poetry book Ashley had gifted me.

—

You made me cry on my birthday,
and really, it was the best gift.
That kind of cry where you hold your breath
because you just know the moment you open your mouth
more unfiltered emotion will escape from your eyes
and rock your words.

It hit me a little. Then it hit me a lot.
And I kept re-reading the poem
to see if it would lessen, or if I could better come to terms with it,
but I could not overlook its subtle power;
the way it reduced me to uncontrollable tears,
I know it’s because underneath all the desperate levels of sadness
there is an infinite well of love that will never, ever dry up.

And so these tears will never, ever dry up.
I went to sit with you during her midnight feed,
to see if that might settle me.
Then her tiny hands wrapped around my finger,
and I lost it all over again.