Pockets of Solitude
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
It’s easy to close your eyes
Surrounded by such stillness,
And the light from bright windows
Beyond which the day busies itself
With so many purposeful things to do.
It’s easy to stand in the middle of the living room
And become a winter tree, draped with a shawl
Of silence.
It’s easy to slip away into pockets of solitude
Where the keys to doors drifting away
Become little bird bones of a life lost
To a childhood of summer breezes filled
With fear.
It’s easy to let the quiet become your body,
To become as a cup in a cupboard,
A microscope in a dark closet, hunched over,
Like a monk studying spirals on vellum leaves.
It’s easy to never wish again, to can’t help
But noticing how fragile you are, fragile
And yet primed to become a leviathan
In the sea of your own life.