Fulcrum

Fulcrum

(for Aza)

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth

A life for a life.

I do not know if God is so exacting, so measured

As to require these things.

I do not know if the universe needs balance, or if it is simply

An imperfect fulcrum, the long weight of the world wobbling on top.

I do not know many things, such as why the moment you were born

She began to die.

Across many miles, the cords of death entangled her

While your father cut the cord that brought you life.

Someplace else,

Her light began to fade as yours grew stronger.

You were her final creation—

Son of her son, born facing forward as she died looking back.

An impossible Janus, you faced each other and exchanged breath—

The strength of the one feeding the other, until life herself

Swelled like a woman’s belly, like a heart that is too big to last

In this world of ours, the world she left as you arrived.

Forward and back, from A to Z and A again, 

A name for a name,

A life for a life,

A breath for a breath.

A mother now gone, yet living still

In the face of the boy she never held.