"I’ve grown to love the steady sound of so many kinds of caving in"
May the water lap away your walls.
May you call all the creatures your siblings.
May you walk in beauty today.
Two Women on the Shore by Edvard Munch, 1898
Dear Maker,
Susannah Nevison & Molly McCully Brown
Under my body’s din,
   a hum that won’t quiet,
I still hear what you’ve hidden
   in all the waves of sound:
each bead of pain
   that buries its head
like a black-legged tick,
   intractable but mine
to nurse or lure with heat.
   Please, tell me
what it means that I’ve grown
   to love the steady sound
of so many kinds of caving in,
   buckling down, the way
a body gives itself away
   like a sullen bride or the runt
who couldn’t latch? I know I’m just
   a hairline crack the music
leaves behind. I love
   the music, though I can’t keep it
from In the Field Between Us (Persea Books, 2020)