How to Be Together

Ask a second grader.

Mine stood at the top

of the stairs, masked,

looking down at me

in the basement, masked,

unable to hold her,

my skin white-green

and slick with virus.

I am teaching her

how to be separate,

how not to hug me

until the doctor says.

When she told me

she missed my arms

so much her knees

wobbled, her eyes

were two wet pebbles

dropped in a gutter.

For what do pebbles

give thanks? How does

a gutter say grace?

I couldn’t even ask

these questions aloud,

so how she discovered

the answer is a mystery

to me: she ran outside,

around the house

to the basement window.

All I had to do was

open it, and that was,

in fact, all I could do.

She found two stones

in the yard, one smaller

than the other, both

of them rough and cold,

then hopped them toward

each other on the bricks

of the window ledge:

uno, dos, aquí. Here we are,

she said, this is you

and this is me, together.

Simple and exact.

People, you know you

are not a child anymore

when love shocks you.

I laid there, amazed

by how much light

two chunks of rock

could give, dazed

by the feast of blankets

glowing around me.

Each shallow breath

was a divine bite.

My daughter was

curled up with me

outside in the late

November sun,

which becomes a new

shade of gold even

on grey surfaces, even

when you think

those colors couldn’t

be further apart.

Abby E. Murray, rattle.com November 23, 2021