Jenn ZatopekIt was like this: waking up early to bike under clear skies, flying under foliage and past homes drawn in pastels and scents of honeysuckle and roses perfuming the air. Everywhere bloomed the promise of spring and with the sun, I stretched myself into the day. It was in those early morning hours while I rode my bike that you died in a hospital room in Dallas, your last breath a mystery to me.
But I didn’t know, drove to work, answered calls in Spanish, and at noon received the stranger’s call that led to your death, shock waves felt for miles as I ran outside for cover. I swear the sky collapsed and bombs fell and my heart broke into a thousand pieces which I am still collecting, still marveling at. Love in human form came through, friends arriving in the initial crisis and departing over the years, and my war-torn heart sutured itself with starry nights, silent sits, and snowy hikes until I realized no one can fix you, make you better.
And all the clocks run backwards and time is a mobius strip, and you are still here, and I am telling you, no! I will not help you, Dad, will not listen to your cries and anguished screams for comfort nor soothe you endlessly with my precious, caring attention. I will not take your leavings into my body as truth, but no, that isn’t right either.
From a dream, I awaken into the dawn, writing in darkness, and find I am here. It is seventeen years later on a cloudy, humid day and the sky empty of birdsong in the middle of spring, and my heart is a woodland grove of newly green trees, reaching upwards and feeling the seasons move through us with such precision as to render a celebration–
I am not what happened to me,
but I am
an ecstatic dance,
a glorious unfolding
a woman made of light. 
