Do continents miss each other?
The lost feather lifting in the wind,
does it remember its sparrow?
Or is it possible to outlive
the brute pull of a phantom limb,
the complete affinity of sleep
curled in a womb
beneath a beating heart?
I think I miss everyone
I’ve ever known. Everyone
I wanted to love.
I miss a mother who won’t die.
A sister I never liked, whom I feared
would kill me if she could.
I miss cousins I never met—
flashlight games we never
played.
There’s a man I miss.
He might be dying. I miss
the piece of me he carried off
like a hungry hyena,
the piece of me he knew
by heart,
which he missed,
and so took it.
