It’s true I need love to be untouchable,
irrefutable, even by God.

I’m not alone in this. I would like my version
of what beauty means to be correct.

I’m so tired of the hours and so stuck
in their many strange happinesses.

It’s winter and then spring again in my heart.
A hawk flies overhead, practicing nothing.

When I was young, my desperation felt to me
like a directive from my grandmother’s god.

Now I’ve thawed some—I became a mother,
found myself forged in that great chain.

Bending like the grasses in the night,
I accommodated the weight of a new life.

There’s no proof of a center thread to all of this,
but it kind of feels right.

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