Beautiful Boy

You imagine he sought the dorm roof
for starlight’s quiet antidote
to a party’s blaring blur.
Or leaned close as he could
to the night’s open mailbox
waiting for an unsent message.
He slipped, fell,

dropped you into an ocean
made of loss. Salt carves
your skin. An undertow
pulls you into depths where
strange unblinking creatures
are better company than
sympathy on the surface.

I imagine existence beyond
birth and death, sense it in
all dimensions, radiant,
vibrantly awake and aware.
It fills every molecule of space.
From this distance I clasp your hand.
There is no distance.

Laura Grace Weldon lives on a ramshackle US farm where she grows ridiculous ideas. She served as Ohio’s Poet of the Year in 2019 and is the author of four books. Laura works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, and maxes out her library card each week.