Unread Message
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Who do you think you are?
If you see the lightening flash
it means you’re surviving the storm.

The spinning river of the Milky Way
also carries dark constellations,
and worlds flung like pieces of pottery.

Each moment, born into the future,
under a crimsoning sky, where red snakes
move among ruins, is a chance to memorize ourselves,
and wade belly-deep in the lakes of our wounds.

Oceans become fields, become forests,
bodies resolve themselves into the earth.
Whoever said we were born to be happy?

There are so many hollows and shields,
so many precious metals ensconced in mountains,
so many things blown out of proportion,
and so many places, like Death Gulch
in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, where two trains
collided head-on December 5th, 1921,
due to one unread message, killing twenty-seven,
wounding seventy.

Morning coordinates with the night,
hatching suggested plans and diagrams of wind.

Grab a tattered shawl, fling it over your shoulder,
it’s OK to move out disheveled–there are no solemnities,
and you won’t be shriven—just go.
Your ability to feel awe is still intact,
and try as might to ignore it, but your need to love
still aches.

Movement is our mother-tongue.
The hairs on the backs of our neck are standing.
We’ve read the message. Our heartbeats
reverberate in our blood. It’s time to remember
who we are.