Guide

ZOE WEISS

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We followed each pale blue roadmap,

Brittle bridges woven from limb to limb.

Traced our route a hundred times,

 

Complex plexus to plexus…

Naming and renaming, tongue-tied and tired

Until we finally knew— a half familiar city,

Brilliantly assembled— disassembled.

 

We held your breath in our lungs—reactions left suspended—

…. maybe we’d forgotten them a while,draped along a narrow hallway,

in place of pressed white coats, unfazed by rows of steel and sterile tables,

uninhabited inhabitants.

 

With limbs aligned by figures, folded into charts on damp pages.

It’s easy to forget…maybe for fear—

The enormity of realization too overwhelming,

or for scattered thoughts troubled by hunger pangs and tired eyes

 

Until we meet ourselves—

In a faded tattoo, an unhealed blister—

Stopped by moments of sudden dizzy disbelief,

Flinching—we remember.

 

Exhale—humbled by unwavering trust— our silent guides

offering their lungs and hearts, resigned of two billion beats

To shy, stumbling, sterile fingers…