Meteorology Lessons

By Layla Lenhardt

I learned the weather by listening.
Apricots cracking open in the heat,
the long ache of highways pulling west.
I carry my name like a cup of river water,
sloshing as I walk, 
trying not to spill what I love by moving.
There are rooms inside me where no one sits,
even when the lamps are warm.
In them I count the cost of being gentle,
how tenderness splits the skin,
how loving with both hands
leaves marks that look like regret.
I have hurt people by leaving early,
by staying too long, by trusting silence.
My heart is a house with too many windows
and I forget which ones open outward.
Still, I plant herbs for the neighbors,
still I sing to strangers like they are family.
Some days I practice being alone
boiling water, folding light,
learning the grammar of my own breath.
I tell myself solitude is not a sentence,
that even the moon keeps its distance
without meaning to wound the tide.

Layla Lenhardt is the author of Mother Tongue, Mainstreet Rag 2023. She has been published in Rust + Moth, Prairie Schooner, Pennsylvania Literary Journal and others. She has received her MFA from IU and is a gemologist and harpist.