By Annika Lee
besides, aren’t we all white-knuckled loners
with spirits distorted by deferred longing?
didn’t we learn from our youth to stand still and quiet
in the burning, as fuel to a fire of unfulfillment?
but no, I say, no—and no again,
to make it muscle memory, habit of my hand and heart.
I demand something different. I saw a skeletal leaf,
a shadow of itself, dissolve in the course of a storm
but I demand life out of it again.
don’t you also dream of rebirth?
don’t you walk beneath the thunder,
and witness inescapable baptism?
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