Embryonic Deliverance

I have seen your face
blended into mine
reflected in the eyes
of every woman
in love.

Every woman who desires
nothing more than
timeless and continuous
connections,
who imagines
thick-lashed Eskimo kisses
from behind closed lids,
nuanced touch
to keep her from
the anguished tumbling
into the alice-hole
of not knowing.

You and I were never allowed such
somatic bliss,
instead were charged with
filling psychic apertures
and neuroblastomic
perforations.

Perhaps, as I, you questioned their origins --
these openings without completion --
wondered, as I, about your role;
perhaps you also tried
to embody your exceptional mind,

use definitions and classifications, to staunch these fragmentations of your wounded children.

I have seen from behind half-opened eyes
how at night
you held these fragile ones close,
brushed their hair from their foreheads,
how you sang to them,
how you gave everything you could
without falling away yourself,
desperate to make them once again whole.

Now, in these sunrise days of post-passing,
I imagine your release
into the fullness of a more welcoming
mysterious and unknowable world.
I carry your unburdened spirit
hidden in my pocket,
wrapped within this stolen gem
         (a small slice of Pribiloff peridot)
tucked away where I
can touch it
always.