You can’t solve being human. We will have this affliction till the day we die.
—Jeannie Zandi
I tried to know it,
catch it, show it,
to splay its wings
and pin them—
to chart it, graph it,
plot it, map it,
quantify and reckon,
I tried to stuff it,
box it, pack it,
leash it to a pole,
I wanted answers,
wanted keys,
I wanted oracles,
and in came tamarisk,
rodents, dust,
whole rooms
of I don’t know,
a screaming child,
my milk dried up,
my fear devoured me whole.
Splintered, rumpled,
rankled, crumpled,
my all collapsed,
unplastered.
Undone, released,
exposed, relieved,
I flowered
utterly mastered.