PEOPLE TOLD ME that is your reward and they meant the good that came after the big loss and the small death – but what if the big small death loss was the reward too, that is what I want to know. Like a tipped bowl too shiny to hold on to I couldn’t bear the sight of a bass-mouthed basket empty so I filled it with bears and dolls and pigs. Too early in our love we had to wash each others’ hair, tipped back over the sink and too cold, though every one likes to believe that kind of intimacy comes much later, preferably after a hospital and a miraculous recovery. Am I afraid of sorrow or am I just optimistic? Or should I be fearless now my griefs and joys are paired, like young men whooping at seagulls? If we pile stones on a green island. . . I am not the same as I was. . . People love a rainbow and a dark sky, people love a hook for its shine. Yes, better to say we were lucky.
Megan Leonard lives and works in New Hampshire. You can find more of her poetry in Sun’s Skeleton, Poems by Sunday, Glitterpony, Puerto del Sol and The Bellevue Literary Review.