Public Republic

Therése Halscheid

Photo: bortescristian

The moon shows me a place beyond this
darkness below

an area of low ground where you stand
among flowers, you in the natural silence
of your being in the quiet hours
your strong hands own.

You with a hoe working that
same plot of earth

watering the magnolia I never did see
and yet have I felt all the white
blossoms inside me, every lovely
white blossom, so that even after
they bloomed, did I catch
the air from my breath
wearing their scent.

How can I explain
we are each other in certain ways
and are meant to continue to be

that we have known each other many times
before now, but keep coming to Earth
forgetting our past.

Listen, there are days left
in our ancient veins

look up ─
the sky holds our stories inside it

and I have begged the stars to form shapes of them
so that you understand.