BENEATH ME

Separated at entrance

The birth departed

And raced up from my tailbone

to the top most tip

And out like smoke.

I forgot you,

Forever, afterall. 

That’s how it felt.

How it seemed.

Until I waded in a pond

As a full grown woman

And my feet saw the reflection

Of the blue heart 

Vibrating, pulsating

The mirrored waters

And you ran up into my veins

There.

And settled up into my spine

There. 

Again. Forever, afterall,

You stayed with me.

The children rubbed on you

And lay their soft skulls against you

As we read books and

Told stories.

You spread thick
Like a paste full of 
Ash and liquid rock

And smooth marble

And rolled through us 

Like an apple 

Breaking from branch.

Ready. Gather up. Eat. Eaten.

And we sometimes entered into

Behind doors of 

Schools and 

Cars

And said yes to long linear roads

That led to nowhere-conversations 

And nothing-feelings.

Until you pushed up 

Through my spine again

Like a virus

And gathered the children 

In my arms, like nectar, 

In my heart-center

And we joined you and 

That once departed-birth

For a final ride in the basket of a 
Transparent balloon

Moving swift and silent

To the center of 

It all. 

And the nothingness 

Became you and them 

And their tired eyes and feet

And I woke in the pond

seeing blue painted on 

My toes.

The water pooling blue blood 

All around me. 

And I saw how everything 

Is alive and never-dying.

And I smiled to know you and the children

And the red and blue of 

Joy beneath me.

stephanie lorentzen-jordan