Three Poems – Leyna R.

I Am Why

My back was turned when the glass exploded. It’s so cliche to say, but it really did seem as though it went grenade-like outward – eight months later, I would find still another piece of it with my barefoot under the kitchen island in the middle of the night. Clearly,t I didn’t see it happen, so I can’t say how it really went, but the first thing I thought – it’s so embarrassing – was ghost. How else could a glass move from the counter to the floor like a firework if not knocked or dropped by some ethereal hand?

Later on I would decide water slide. Would decide slick counters, sloppy hand washing, sour grapes. I’m always one for the science of things, the hows and whys of the world. There is always a reason, like, I am why I miss you. I am the reason this thing is, I am the body this longing splits off and creates itself from. Everything has to come from somewhere. There is always a beginning, a catalyst, the point on a shard of glass that splits the skin and makes blood, makes a wound, the first moment a scar is born  –