Atia Sattar
EMPTY
I was so full of life when you died.
Every day, hour, moment
of watching you unravel,
your body giving way,
your lungs relinquishing breath,
was accompanied by
a rising tangle
of kicks and rolls,
the pleasurable and reassuring discomfort
of a child
stirring,
tightening,
swimming
inside me.
And as I held your dying hand,
still familiar, soft, and warm,
urging myself to memorize the sensations
of every contour,
every crease,
I held steady,
was held steady,
anchored
by this fledgling
so eager
to take shape in a world
where you were coming undone.
I have since born witness to both transitions—
your violent departure
from the confines of a body no longer holding on,
her fluid emergence
from the constraints of mine,
where I could no longer keep her.
I miss the intimacy of the three of us together:
one life within, one life without,
and I, the intermediary.
In its stead,
I sense a soft ache,
a tender longing,
a gnawing at my edges from the inside
where I am now hollow,
unmoored,
a vacant body
imprinted with grief.