The Loss 

that Makes Us

Whole Again

Wholeness has a hole in it from the start.

The day we lose something, its absence 

draws in new air like an iron lung

filling us up again with restorative silence. 

Ill prepared for the privilege of living,

there’s nothing more debauched than thinking,

but a loss can make us whole again;

the unforeseen realization that the negative

is merely the diary of our own shadow.

6/12/21