How to Forgive 100 Years After A War

At the mouth of "yes,"
we climb under the sheets.

When our hands touch, 
we cross into a new time zone.

Your shadow falls upon my face,
and the body of my motherland 

      is reduced to ash.  

A hundred years ago, you were
a bullet         passing through 

my mother’s body.     A colony 
of moths–soaring into my country, 

yearning only to set it on fire. 
In the glow,      we mirror 

the battalion & the war woman, 
divided by the thin membrane

of a lifetime. Despite history, 
our bodies know: 

      to live is to strive toward the flame.

Today, we are moths soaring 
toward each other, yearning only

      to become lantern. 

As we burn, in silence, toward
the sky, I hear no gunshots. 

No flames clapping as villages burn 
to the ground. I unpin our lives 

from history & press my ear 
to the dialogue of our blood.

My body is ready to forgive 
what my past cannot.