Quiet

years from now they’ll ask us if it was still—the Quiet?
and yes we’ll say, we were stirred but it was still.
stirred?
we were stirred, we learned the shape of our own ears
the soft animism of mortality
we looked at each other’s skin, from a distance,
and felt we could break at anything at all
a piercing thought even
we thought we’d lose everything, we thought we already had

so we were stirred.
but it was quiet?
but it was distillery-quiet

and there was fear in our hearts but the love
it was decanted and poured freely
we still chatter about it like it was honey
and we learned how to be kinder to bees

we called our grandmothers and asked them for videos
and they sent us anything at all
grass
ovaltine
and we told our friends we loved them
and we looked at our uncles from across the street
screens
hands on our hearts, and they melted.

from?
stillness, fullness, sweetness, whatever we had.
we learned how big we were and how small
like those girls who broke your whole heart?
nodding
so you could see where all the pieces were
how capacious it was, anything can belong in there
anything at all
like those girls. but a whole earth.