The First Dent

A boy says no when my son asks

to play, and everything inside me

breaks. Not the swift shatter of glass

against tile, but a mountain’s slow crumble:

whiplashed by wind, worn down by waves.

The facade slips from the cliff of me

and again, I am a girl alone,

shoving twigs into gopher holes

of hope. A teen flattened against the wall,

waiting to be asked to dance.

I am a woman under the moon,

begging for life to sprout,

and all I can do now

is watch my child blink,

a pause that fills with questions

he doesn’t yet know how to ask.

I wonder if he feels it,

this first crack

hissing like ice on a pond—

the truth pressing

through the surface,

making its very first dent.

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