A ritual of small work:

the dish rinsed, the call returned.

Some days I scrub the same dish

to avoid answering the phone.

I gather in unity’s circle

in a room where hurt crowds every chair.

The person next to me

starts a sentence twice.

We wait

motionless,

until they find the rest.

We read the names of our dead

under the basement’s fluorescent hum

the ones who tried and hoped and fell.

Our truths slowly unfold,

patient

as the metal chairs we set in rows,

while the old hunger wins for a moment

somewhere across town.

The man I sat beside last Tuesday

does not come back.

Not everyone will see you as you are.

Not everyone needs to.

But who among us

doesn’t long to be free of the ache?

When goodbye sits heavy on the tongue

the only way out

is back through the face

in the bathroom mirror.

I wrap faith

around a dark stone

and carry it anyway

a step, a slip, a step

and slowly the mountain moves

a stone’s width a season

a shift once believed

impossible.

Restitution asks for quiet

and exact intentions:

a list in pencil

every name owed an apology.

Some I cross out.

Some I add.

Carrying confessions on hunched shoulders

door to door

I sweep my side of the street

and my opening hands

reach out to serve.

Evening closes gently.

The glass rinsed.

Set by the sink.

In the stillness

the body speaks its small truths:

hunger, anger, loneliness, fatigue.

Inventory becomes re-entry

a return to the self

capable of loving again

grateful

still

for one more day

to begin.