/1/ What forest is there to run to, other than the one within another’s heart? What appears to be deeply rooted is half dead drowning and sucking at the sun. /2/ I hate to say this but what is stable can be easily disrupted, and what is easily disrupted can cloud even the clearest of days. This is what I have come to know after being turned on, turned over, and turned round. /3/ I want to spark the heat of this body with the heart, with the heart of the heart, with the heart of the heart of this body, with the whole body of the heart, and then I want to slow it down and tinker with it. I want to slow it all the way downdowndown to a gentle timber, or fall. /4/ To pioneer is to take part in the beginnings of something. Come, Pioneer. I am tired of shepherding this heart. Help me to believe. Come. I am near willing to give it up and over. Come, before I bury it all under.
Copyright © 2019 Leah Umansky. This poem originally appeared in Poetry Northwest, Winter & Spring 2019. Used with permission of the author.