I once saw an empty noose swinging from the gnarled limbs
of a pecan tree, and it reminded me of the shifting tectonic plates
my grandmother swore she saw beneath my grandfather’s skin
the first time she placed her palms over his chest.
Sometimes, everything means knowing that nothing can hold us.
There are mine fields inside my stomach I have never seen,
either because I’m waiting for someone to detonate them
or because I’m too afraid to find out that maybe, just maybe,
the explosion already happened long ago
and what’s left of my heart is just a splattered mess full of shrapnel.
I want these ribs to christen themselves into wings
so the story my grandmother told me about equating breathing with flight
can come true after all. For these freckles on my wrists
to be more than freckles, to be Orion’s Belt instead, to be stars
that will guide my way home without a compass.
For this language I speak to be fewer words and more poetry.
I want to go back in time and turn that pecan tree noose
into a jump rope for a smiling child instead;
I want to watch my grandmother sink her hands slowly
into the epicenter of my grandfather’s sternum,
sink them so deep his ribs melt away into the ocean of his blood.
I want to go back in time and pinpoint the exact moment
she made his heart stop beating.