A Momentary Retraction of Grief

Sometimes everything shifts. A burden lifts. You can breathe again.

That’s all I can remember about the origins of this poem, except for the fact that diamond rain is real (or at least, scientists believe it is).

I wrote this poem in February 2022, and it was originally published in the Spring 2022 issue of Gyroscope Review.

A Momentary Retraction of Grief

I was or wasn’t somewhere particular
when I replicated. Transcriptions bloomed,
fanned out, pulled away from each other.
Nuclear envelopes disintegrated—
a milky haze drifted away.

There was a time of condensing, or
lightening—the end result felt clean
but not twinned. I gazed at myself
and did not remember this green.
Wasn’t it leaden, always?

I didn’t know the atmospheres,
the chemical furies were still—
available. Now
sheets of diamond rain drive inward
toward a radiant night.