ARCHETYPE The Caregiver
Isra Hassan
for Abo
Imagine.
His words, boulder size,
are the embodiment of light,
nestled in the absence of weight.
He blows air into my bones.
It thinks I’m pumice so it enters
accordingly. It cements itself in me,
honeyed. I float.
My being no longer touches the ground.
With no recollection of this season change,
forgetting it has ever touched ground.
I fail in soft ability.
I fail in memory.
He refuses to let my wallows crystallize.
Our dynamic comforts him. Abo.
It’s so that I can look up to you.
And even in my ascension, we are equals.
Imagine.
I ground him.
Our covalent bond
had formed a rebirthed
Earth. One he finds home
in. Sinking, subsiding
to newfound solace. A sinkhole
having deposits of new
earth and untouched
space for him
and I to make space
for one another.
A conglomerate of never ending
love threatens to erupt.
Our being: always two,
but our closeness steadfast,
where our air, like
our purpose,
is one.
*
Isra is a Somali-American essayist, and poet based in Minneapolis, MN. Find her @israology everywhere.