...though it feels inconsequential, 

like the stacks of cascading emails

we keep sending & receiving—sprains

taking months to mend amid pains:

heartbroken by words we’ve spoken

over the feeling that anything might

end soon if we’ve fed the fight.

 

Breathe, love,

hearts are brave stoves: smoke churning, fire 

burning so hot we’ve mistaken it for cold—

a freeze bone-deep, brittle, old. 

 

When we’re afraid, sometimes,

we make mistakes:

 

we’re not waiting for a thaw.

Set your ancestors’ jaw—

we’re making familiar fuel, alive, 

that we’ve tasted before, survived.

 

It’s true, you’re right, that who we invite

into our recipes, our respite, 

is not who we’ll ask to witness the work

we rise to knead & press—

 

work already raised to the press—

 

knowing voting isn’t enough

to protect soft hearts from charring, rough.

 

Politicians won’t save us, any year, 

and, my dear, a few might be willing 

to hear what we say.

They may. 

 

And we must ignite who might, at least,

sit at the table to learn how we’re cresting yeast

among fear & who we consider beasts

afraid of fire so wise. Like bread that hopes
to break us both: to whoever decides to look in our eyes,

we can rise, we must rise, we will rise.