Marie Howe
When he finally put
his mouth on me—on
my shoulder—the world
shifted a little on the tilted
axis of itself. The minutes
since my brother died
stopped marching ahead like
dumb soldiers and
the stars rested.
His mouth on my shoulder and
then on my throat
and the world started up again
for me,
some machine deep inside it
recalibrating,
all the little wheels
slowly reeling and speeding up,
the massive dawn lifting on the other
side of the turning world.
And when his mouth
pressed against my
mouth, I
opened my mouth
and the world’s chord
played at once:
a large, ordinary music rising
from a hand neither one of us could see.
