Woman Carrying Everything
       

It is almost like being asleep in your own lightning.
I know I'll calm down when I get past the drama,
                or the stride.
I know I'll calm down when the stress is handled,
                when the good is found.
It is almost like being asleep in your own lightning.
I try to wonder more about the unexpected.
                (I should've said that the other day.)

It is almost like being asleep in your own lightning.
This tiny light. The tiniest light in the world
still stirs and flows. Its current, a train through the dark.
Within myself, I have the hope.
                I carry it in the stalk of me.
Like a cornflower, I blue myself into thought.

This is the problem with being alive:
                the letting go
                the long wait
                the misdirection
                the side ways
                the intentions
                the muck-dwelling
                the pigs

It is almost like being asleep in your own lightning.

The zag will jolt me in the night
and the dark will split the solitude in two.
There will be two versions of the same life,
this quiet normal life.
What else could come of this?
What human would stay so quiet?
How to live?
What to do?
You know, I'd speak to that divide,
and then move forward,
                to the stars, to the day, to the sun.

Tweet
Copyright © 2019 Leah Umansky All rights reserved
from Bennington Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission