Because our conversation
feels like riding a bike uphill,
I think of gears. I think
of how easy it is to shift
lower, how a simple flick
of the thumb makes the impossible
possible. Where are the gears
for love? There must be better
ways to use our teeth
than biting words. There must
be a series of notched wheels
in the heart that allow us
to move forward with less force,
some mechanism to make
the chain hop from one sprocket
to another, changing the way
we engage. I want to find that gadget,
those gears, the ones that help us
hear each other, the ones
that help us say what must be said,
the simple tools that allow us
to move forward at all.