Expectation Elegy

	pocks on the motherworts.

gray-green, white-
green, dogeared. 

	no one 
	volunteers to be ill,

you say. and i the heart alone

sustains us. above

	the light in cowlicks slips
	between our sundown's favored trees.

coming around inspiration point’s 
eastern face, one last mile, we traipse
the odd gap-toothed bridges designed

to break the ankles of hoofed animals 
who set out to cross them. O,

      sister of mine.

which of us knew first.

i, who came from nothing, or you
	who clutched a little longer.

	our ears 

were branches, remember —

	our ears could be.

her voice would land upon them, 
feathered

	as whispers.

whispered

	i don’t know what’s going to happen,
	but it will. 

	be good. 
	
my voice broke, carnation in the shade.

anything could inspire wonder, perennial
racing through its seasons.

even illness, bound in time.
headwaters.

we’re awful close now. minutes

merely. almost
lumen. 

the horizon’s separating from its pulp.

---

Benjamin Bartu is a poet & disability studies researcher. He is the author of the chapbook Myriad Reflector (2023), finalist for the Poetry Online Chapbook Contest. His poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net, and has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, Sonora Review, Bellingham Review, HAD, nat.brut, Guesthouse, & elsewhere. He lives in Oakland, California.