Things We’ll Never Hold
And what did I know
of the world at twenty-six,
the year I was suppose to
give birth in the spring,
the year Mount St. Helens erupted,
the year John Lennon was shot?
Maybe my longing
should have been less.
Maybe my body
should have done more.
~
All season long a stilled lullaby
beats between barren ribs.
The geese bleed
into the sunset.
Should I believe,
what will be, will be?
~
Near Puget Sound a mother orca
pushes her dead calf
around the waters for seventeen days
and one thousand miles.
She struggles to keep her baby afloat
before letting go. Her lament:
a barren lullaby.
How long do we carry
the things we’ll never hold?
How long do we carry the stories
that need to be told?
By Louisa Muniz

Biography:
Louisa Muniz lives in Sayreville, N.J. She holds a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Kean University. Her work has appeared in Tinderbox Journal, SWWIM, ONE ART, Palette Poetry, Menacing Hedge, Poetry Quarterly, PANK Magazine, Jabberwock Review and elsewhere. She won the Sheila-Na-Gig 2019 Spring Contest for her poem Stone Turned Sand. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Her debut chapbook, After Heavy Rains by Finishing Line Press was released in December, 2020.