If my fingers weren’t sea glass,

rough & smooth, I’d use the edges

to make a clean cut, and give

you back the love I borrowed.

But instead, I will hold this

poem against your chest and rely

on the heft of punctuation:

line after line, stanza after

stanza. I’ll use hyphens as

levers to open your ribs—

(and cover the stench of longing

with parentheses)—and with

the curved hook of a question

mark and the gentle care of

a comma, I will, slowly,

wordlessly, slip your heart back in.