by Drew Heuermann
Our hands, interlocked through the night. Doing what we can to keep
our lanterns close. Our bodies, a pair of spent tissues
floating around, too fragile to rush. A religion of inconsequence,
of passing. But what does that mean for everything in my arms?
The last mom-job of Grandma’s body was one squeeze. Almost every
body had a name once, and before they were bodies? Were we
found loose in a pile of love, you and I, that first morning
before the world was made? How could anyone have known
that we would climb the birch for our clothes
the same way that rot makes its way up through a fallen
acorn; how the grub inside will always, eventually, take its first
look out and think oh, so this is the world. Our skin could only
hold the water as droplets, eventually wiped clean because
they couldn’t stay there forever, and even if they could. Up late practicing
that final handshake of love which must be taught. Thanks
grandma. Preparing for one squeeze returned by one
squeeze. Our words, gone. Soft tissue skin. The I need you to know
repeating as many times as it can, until only the feeling is left.
Drew Heuermann is a social worker from Michigan. His poems have appeared in The Bangalore Review, and Western Michigan University’s The Laureate. He was a runner-up in the 2017 Gwen Frostic Creative Writing Awards, and he interned for New Issues Press and Poets in Print.
