postcard

I. home

it's beginning to feel like you again here

when I halve a squash and let its scent fill the room

when I lay my yoga mat out on the floor

to close my eyes and pray quietly

I think about you

and how we sat in the windowsill before anything had found its place

before setting it up together

I sit in front of the sill now

and find a place inside of me

as if I was a mirror, my open, gilded arms

ready to be lifted and put where I belong

II. art

you put me on the wall

and in the whisper-slim space between the hooks and eyes

you tell me it's okay to give all the pieces of me away, free

it's what you would do

reflections have always come easy to me

so I hand them out

I send them in songs and poems

sometimes only one loose nail from shattering in

what I call failure

but you remind me not think too much

of the onlookers in my glass

so I give them their beauty on top of my own

even if they say nothing in return

and I feel like I've said too much

III. time

I finally stopped to make bread

to take the time in kneading and baking

stretching my own body out like dough onto the floured table

pushing with my palms,

pushing myself into the wood

pushing and folding until my heart sits on top

so that when the knife comes to score me in two

it doesn’t hurt

I finally ache to write again

to bake again

and I begin to feel you here

I know now

that the excess of your time

which to you felt like a frustrated cage--

it was your time that made these walls welcome me

and hug me into happiness

IV. happiness

I still find her without you,

happiness

most times I don't even have to look

and she finds me in small symphonies

lights and shadows, shapes and colors

and in the things you left behind

the baking sheet you gave to our kitchen cupboard

will always be my favorite

even though it has no edges

like me

pieces like us,

we let the olive oil run freely off our sides

sizzling when it hits the oven door

giving and giving

fluidity doesn't look back

V. you

I see you in me

and in the things you loved and left

mirror me, whole wheat me, baking sheet me, artist me

I see me on your futon

dreaming up my bell bottoms from pants that

cartwheeled the pont des arts in a past life,

a pair that four of us now have watched grow

as we sew

growing

that's what love does

and that's what art does

so that's what we do

even if it means being cut and ruched and pinned

our fabrics forever flutter and fold

becoming something new with every person that sees

I see you in me

when I hang up new things that I've made

even if I'm not convinced of their worth

I hear you in me

when I try to tell myself I'm not good enough

or that I've said too much

I feel you in me

when I stretch

in my hands when I bake

in my eyes when I cry

in my mind

when I turn my curves into perfect square edges,

my skin into paper,

my face into glossy card stock,

and my mouth into the longest string

of x's and o's

clara leverich

2893 kaiwiki road

hilo, HI 96720

g.c.s