When we arrived in this unknown place
we knit together in a way
that made me want to shout
this, this is my family.
How could you know that
I dreamed each of you up
when my heart was just a tiny thing?
I marvel at the way you rip
at the seams of our old life,
to make space for the new.
You stretch us beyond comfort,
to fit a shape still forming.
Pulling loneliness close like an old friend,
you seek to be known.
Sometimes it feels exactly right,
and sometimes all this new just weighs me down.
But when I burrow down into the neck of this, of you,
I can feel the light filtering in.
I can feel the known this might become.
Tonight we pull up the chairs, and
we gather the people we’ve found.
All the home I could have ever hoped for,
seated at one expanding table.
My heart is full.
My heart is still so hungry.
It’s usually too much, and it’s never quite enough.
Yet, that fickle muscle dreamt this up.
It formed tonight out of nothing, and
this family out of long ago and tiny wishes.
If something both so shiny and so solid
can form from such as wispy seed as that,
then I will give thanks
for both the solitary nights
and ones filled to bursting such is this.
Nicole Kelly is new to these mountains, and all their possibilities.
Boulder Weekly accepts poetry and flash fiction submissions of 450 words/35 lines or fewer and accompanied by a one-sentence bio of the author. Send to: [email protected]
