Hold me.

Smooth the seams from

my brow

with a song,

your voice —

cool and blue and constant —

a frill

against my ear.

Take my grief,

the ballast trapped

within heart and head and

too-narrow frame.

Lift it.

Erode it,

with patient certainty,

as the shells and stones

that lace your shore.

Scour all to

glittering, gathering sand

that gives beneath each step,

then lifts and

blows and

scatters.

— C.Birde, 10/16