Poem: "Left / Right"

Left / right

My grandmother mends the seam
between Atlantic and Pacific,
one half silk, the other linen.
But, as quickly as family
they pull apart,
the threaded waves unraveling.

Where do they begin to be themselves,
those two halves, water bodies whorling,
meeting, like hair, in crests?

I picture
a woman's spine
alone on a white bed,
twist cork cracking,
or a raphae, the ridge
that seared
your two competing
minds together.


                         – JVH