Islands

Wake early, how strange it is to know everything and nothing all at once. The streets are familiar, the color of the people and the lilt of the language. I remember the sound of the subway, the absence of rats, the scowls on strangers' faces and the uniform design of their ways. I forget the way midday sunlight feels like morning and the fall of your crest as dusk returns before even you realized it was day. I forget how dark the city at night, and quiet, moderation at every turn, how sensible the zeitgeist.

I forget how when I set foot in this land I don't know how to live a whole life without it.

In the late afternoon, I rode the bus across the water, a small island waiting in silence, anticipation. Would you like to hold him? she says but we both know I have never not wanted to hold him. We loved you before you were born, I whisper as he sleeps in the nook of my neck, and I'll love you long after I'm gone. I looked around at what they'd built from so many ashes, breathed in the sad, warm, joyous fear of a whole life and thought alright then. I was wildly happy once, you know, but I am all better now. You cannot break me when my bones are all fractured.

They simply wave in the wind
and endure.