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Poetry

Shoulder

Isabella DiPisa
issue two.

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I’d like to think I know

Why we cry on other people’s shoulders—

Our tears that

Create stains on their body holders,

Their clothes.

But they don’t add to the weight of life,

No, they’re the foundation.

We cry because there are collective tears—

Water holding the weight of the world

In salty streams on soft cheeks.

They are on the Earth, in the sky,

The water cycle of love between them,

It lets us flightless creatures fly even

With our own burdens on our shoulders,

Our backs.