She ascends her smile on a Monday,
measures that small-stepped evening
by holding the intangible space
between her hands
and the instinct of palms is to press
against each other, so she grapples
with the ocean, sifts salt from memory
to mark the unsettled silence
of unbelonging-
to discover that mass has weight
only when touched.
She is hollow by Tuesday.
Her water has an unbroken edge.
It separates all this from the other side
of empty, from unseen moments
in the Braille of age on skin.
[ but only the lines felt from inside. ]
A Wednesday comes-
she stops on a hilltop to gather a view,
one small enough to carry in stillness,
to wrap into night.
Like her, the dark is anonymous here
and spread large enough to rise,
to notice the effort of dying this way.
The shape of indifference is a sum of absence,
so it is here, in this now,
deep in the becoming,
that her fingers
pause.
[ It is a Thursday. ]
Silver trophy winner
Adding your comment:
The rest of the poem is beautiful - in tone and mood.
