-for Amanda Moore, with a quote by Albert Schweitzer
I craved a bond that breathed.
I needed to know I could live with less.
When he looked out the window, I asked
What are you staring at? and he said the future.
I looked out the window and saw a bird
and I did not try to identify it. I let it be bird.
I saw how bird perched, three toes curling forward,
one curling backward, tightening at four separate points.
But I did not think about bird’s relationship
with the tree, or tree’s roots.
The nurse asked if I had a lack of interest in things
I normally loved, and I said yes. And no.
And I didn’t question what that meant.
I went to church with a friend, the early service
without the singing. But isn’t that what church is about?
I thought of voices rising together like wings.
Isn’t that what faith is? And she said, maybe with pity,
No, the point was God. Still, I crossed my arms
over my chest and did not receive the blessing.
I don’t know what I am always so afraid of.
There was this unclean cleaving, like a saw blade
to skin and slipping sutures. I must believe
in something more than the bend in our backs.
Once, I stared at a blank page,
but did not lift the pen. I felt a hollow,
an expanse, air and light
making room in tilled soil.
And all along I thought I am life
willing to live in the midst of life willing to live.
Eventually, I had no thoughts at all.
I didn’t try so hard. There was this body, it felt
the skin attached. Fascia, muscle, synapse, node.
And a soul lifting from the spine.
by Mistee St. Clair
Mistee St. Clair is a Rasmuson Foundation and Alaska Literary Award grantee and has been published by The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Common, Northwest Review, SWWIM Every Day, and more. Born and raised in Alaska, she lives in Lingít Aaní (Juneau), where she hikes, writes, and wanders the mossy rainforest.
back to Issue 16