Certainty
Like the one that, with dark clouds,
Announces the downpour.
Like the aura before the convulsion,
The heat before the tremor.
Like my eyes, before the alarm clock rings.
Like wet flowers in the morning… without rain.
The smell of earth on the first of May.
The breeze of Good Friday.
Like the choppy sea one afternoon… without a storm.
Like the taste of my grandmother’s beans… gone.
The piercing gaze of my husband.
The faces of my children when they come home from school.
Or the silence.
Certainty.
Is that what you are like?
You arrive like a wave to the shore
And wet the sand without flooding it.
You are like the breeze that tousles my hair
And makes the palm trees dance.
Like the acoustics of a calm sea.
Like small hail falling on a sunny afternoon.
Like sunlight entering through a crack.
Like the smile of a confetti horn on Instagram.
That is how you are, certainty.
I read you
Without failing.
And I feel you.
And in you I trust,
Like the mother
Who knows that the breast calms the crying,
Or like the dog who, behind a door,
Knows the scent of its master.
And I believe,
Even though you dissolve in water
Like lemon.
Even though no GPS can locate you,
You keep weaving, for me,
A path
Like a wake upon the sea
That smooths the wrinkles from my eyes
And
Leads me to your nest,
A warm place, full of nourishment and company,
Where you dwell
And erase
And cleanse,
Like a scrubbing sponge,
Any fragment of doubt,
And you reestablish yourself in my soul
Like ivy on a wall—
Impossible to silence,
Impossible to ignore.
Certainty, like love,
Never fades.
