LAURIN BECKER MACIOS

But When You Feel Longing

But when you feel longing, there is somewhere to go:
the tall grass flecked with ticks, searching with their legs
for yours; the boardwalk made of leafless trees
staring all day at the full water—not at their own reflections,
but at each wet molecule together creating each wide wave
and each small fish curving its black body above the sand.
When you feel longing, you are not a bride, not a bridge,
not a bird, not a burrow hole, not a cave; you are a mountain
raised over years and years of your own listening.
When you feel longing you are the sea floor, you are the blind
gossamer fish grazing it, its whole life one dark moment waiting
for something to pass by.