Page 31

turn the page

turn the page

the paper folds around me

the air hums

the letters whisper my name

thirty-one times

a door that smells like

sweet jasmine, juniper berries,

a hymn curling through the floorboards

into the spine of my bones

Mama drifts,

not seen, only breathed, only felt

voice flowing like riverlight

threading through locs of dark wind,

through the slow drum of a limp,

through glasses catching

everything that ever wanted me alive

Daddy thunders,

low, steady like floorboards trembling underfoot

sweetness in the air—sugar beets, apple,

earth and warmth beneath each step

pushing me forward into the curl of the poem

where all of us exist at once

where none of us are bounded by breath

He moves through the lines

and I write because of him

because the ache he leaves

lifts the letters like smoke

presses the words into fire

the book itself leaning toward the living, the lost,

the ones who tried to unmake me

and failed

failed

failed

Everything folds, folds, folds

the poem, the scent, the pulse

becoming body becoming heartbeat

becoming tide that carries my name

back and forth,

back and forth

through every page that turns itself

this is not reading

this is summoning

this is resurrection

this is the air learning the shape of my soul

page thirty-one spinning

breathing

singing until everything—

the living, the dead,

the wanting, the undone—

rises

rises

rises