You uproot me from my convictions
and expose my skin to air,
dusting away
with saintly tenderness
the accumulated crumbs of earth
with which I have buried myself.
I breathe
as an organism full of blood;
with the vigor of life
and the comfort of purpose.

I wanted to thank someone
for you;
as though, just maybe,
there could be something
beyond us, cognizant
of my microscopic existence,
sending me with grace
a signal of hope, blooming
out of the impossible soil of chaos.

I think I could be a theist
if I spent enough time with you—
a perfect and strange little blessing
to an imperfect and strange little life.
Sometimes I wonder
if someone put you here,
but it’s simply too human
to think the world beautiful
and believe it was there for me
to find it that way.