Animal Body

Some mornings the grief of the world

Sits on my chest

Like an animal that does not know

Its own weight.

I try to count the ways a heart can break—

Cities collapsing into headlines,

Oceans carrying plastic prayers,

Children learning the full mouth of fear

Before the alphabet.

The scale of it

Is a cathedral without doors.

Every sorrow echoes.

Every echo becomes another sky

Pressing down.

For a while

I forget how to want anything.

Then a breeze moves through the open window.

A dog somewhere

Loses its mind over a passing squirrel.

The body remembers small rebellions.

Warm coffee.

The color green returning to a tree

That never read the news.

And quietly—

Like moss rebuilding a ruined wall—

The soft animal of me

Leans back toward the world,

Still afraid of its vastness,

Still hearing the distant thunder,

But willing again

To love what it loves, again.

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