You listen,

and something in me
stops speaking
as though it must
prove its existence.

You remember

the small,
unremarkable fragments
of my days,

holding them
with the reverence
usually reserved
for relics.

You reach—

and some forgotten thing
beneath language

looks up.

As iron
knows the pull
of its unseen north,

as rivers
remember the sea
before they have seen it,

as migrating birds
inherit a map
they were never taught,

so does the heart

recognize

what the mind
is still
trying to name.