. / !

by Heather DeAtley

Periods should be called Exclamations!
They flow.
They stretch.
There is nothing about endings. Nothing definitive.
Only that dynamic tribute to life’s continuum.
They can arrive with excitement.
Or relief.
Or the biting edge of disappointment.
Either way, they are life’s greatest proposal.
A crimson contradiction of life and death
Riding on that descending vertical flow.
These quivering wombs we share
Are all connected
Like the roots of trees
We are mightier
When we bleed.

* * * * *

Heather DeAtley, a Virginia native, currently lives in Tel Aviv, where she is actively developing her Body Poetry practice--rooted in her training as an Ilan Lev Method Practitioner, Body Poetry seeks to bridge the realms of somatics, body work, and poetry through anchoring, playing, and discovering language through the body and movement.