there are thin places everywhere

my neighbour sings a morning song to his grandson.

a small body’s laughter finds me through the thinly papered walls.

the mouth of my right ear rests

famished

against the flimsy barricade—the patterned hindrance.

the shape of the soft offering placed in my hands, at once

familiar.

the lilt of the tender summons, water in my hands.

it lingers.

how a thin place, a lack, is a gift sometimes.

{a poem from, The Velveting Bones}