Letting Go

The space between
faith and failing—as fragile
as my grandmother’s slip–
I see
those two don’t exist
as I had thought they did.

After waking–
as if from a cave and floating out
into an inlet in an ocean,
left for dead–
your eyes need months to adjust, your breathing
needs to steady, you can’t speak
or understand the horizon

and then
there

blinding linens, her knotted hands
on the clothespins, pulling down
the white cord beneath white clouds
by the Birch tree;

whites
color around my thoughts
as if surviving meant
that the only truth
was there.