the gleam of an egg you crack
out of its pale cloister

water you see pulled apart
into countless
beacon-eyed drops

dough kneaded by your hands—
folded up, over, into itself,
stretched toward luminescence

the faint opal scars
still streaking across
your once pregnant belly

and even that stone
lodged far too long in your throat,
a lump so hard
at times you can’t swallow

eventually it eases away,
climbs above a dark horizon,
becoming your star
named Grief—

over you it hovers
that constant
ache of its light