This guest contribution comes from Patricia Brooks. Ms. Brooks has published two novels with Dell, Falling From Grace and But For The Grace. Her novel, And Whose Little Girl Are You?, is about the recovery from rape of the same character earlier in her life.
*
Poised precisely
like a drop
on the lip
of a teacup,
the future waits for us
to tire and fall.
But we hang on,
challenging both
gravity and
godthefather.
I want, she said,
to let go.
Please just let me
let go.
All the carolers came
to mourn the death early,
but her voice rose to be heard;
they flooded her with their certainty,
yet she plead,
Please don’t make me let go.
I don’t really want to let go.
Until the sun finally found her,
rays like x-rays revealing all,
found wells of pure will
unattached to any organ,
a fulsome reservoir to quench her thirst.
I don’t want, she cried, to let go.
Please don’t let me let go.
Our lives may be measured in coffee spoons,
yet are uncharted on any parchment.
We are each a single silver thread,
reaching from one void to another.
Our fingers unravel the imperfect fabric,
tat its threads to new patterns,
weaving our weakness together.
We must never let go, never
let each other, ever
let go.
*