The Healer

It was the way I felt

when I looked in her eyes, 

how the last dregs of fight

lifted off like steam

as she smiled down at me

on her thick warm table,

eyes full of sky,

wisps of hair, snowy mountains

falling around a face

that knows its name.

Tsk tsk, she said, so much 

resentment. And what about

this burden in your chest?

I know, I said, I know,

but I only wanted her 

to put her hands where it hurt,

layering her wide 

Latino palms in between mine, 

pressing us down together

on the frozen soil of my breasts,

along my raw and brittle neck,

smoothing the stones in my face

as she breathed the north wind,

held me like a mother never has,

let me loose in the fury of the pain

without having to do it alone, in the dark,

in this fortress of tendon and fascia 

that holds up my head 

in a hurricane of wanting,

tries to cradle my sons 

with a love I only imagine,

damns the thick and salty ache 

so it does not wash us all away,

reaching up its mighty arms 

to pull me down under. 

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Published in Method Writers Speak, 2025