How to Help (a work in progress, like us all)
How to Help Come sit with me; I’ve saved a seat. There’s room for you inside my grief. In here the air is thick and full, A dream deferred, pressed to the hull; A seed that sprouts long choking fingers, Unless a friend sometimes will linger. I realize that the hull is cracked. Don’t try to mend or glue it back. It needs the gashes and the gaps To let in light and gulp in gasps Of air, which pushes out despair. The light shows how to look, and where. It’s changing through the glass half-dark, From seed to stem, from gash to scar. Just sit with me in what’s been sewn; Feel how the blades are being honed. My love is here, eyes wasted thin, Waking each day to try again. Each time I sigh, it’s him who says, “Intentámos, otra vez.” My daughter’s here, violently torn; Groaning, bitter, prone to mourn. Don’t speak to her with sweet-sick pity. She’s fortified, bloodchild of my city. My son is here, in my same seat. He waits...