【Written by Caroline Brink】

Your laugh is big.
It sways from side-to-side 
floaty, gauzy, like peonies or a girl 
in a pink dress. I remember 
laughing,

holding your body, head 
against my heart. You could
hear the thrumming muscle,  
a metronome for a ballad 
I was writing for you. 

When you leave, I think 
of this: a laugh, 
a peony in my chest 
where you placed your head once.
Untangling time, still 

the seed you planted floats 
in my sternum, remembering
spring, considering the bloom 
that might come 
again.