I suggest something different from longing
entirely separate from belonging.
I propose spaces.
Not holes or gaps
implying absence or worse
emptiness
but spaces as places
between what we know.
The big sky
my mother’s face
pizza sauce served thickly.
‘Awesome’ ‘cookie’ ‘garbage can’
my brother’s crooked eye.
SUVs and mountain streams
a bluebird’s song a hummingbird’s wing
tall glasses of 2% milk
my father’s towering body.
Vineyards
combustion heaters
‘partner’ not ‘husband’
and stopping to remember
he has an accent.
Port dolphins
gumtree bark
the footy the ocean
a roasted chook.