my neighbour sings a morning song to his grandson

their laughter finds me through the wall, papered

against the sound of other lives intruding

erases the dark voice of the night

forgetting its sharp face, i lean in close

eat the soft offering placed in my hands

roll it around inside my mouth

how a thin place, a lack

is a gift sometimes.

— there are thin places everywhere | the sheer gift thereof

© Liezel Graham 2021.

{Image by Ameen Fahmy, on Unsplash}

words that found me early this morning as the light was still breaking.

i am forever humbled by the way that a poem will sometimes show its thoughts to me even when my eyes are closed, my mind caught in the fog of broken sleep.

we are so accustomed to seeing thin places; sparseness—the lack of something, as a thing to be remedied…an emptiness to be filled.

sometimes, the thinness is the gift.

liezel x