When I touched enlightenment,
everyone swelled from two dimensions to three
like a pack of long balloons inflated
and flexed into poodles and giraffes
and reciting the stories of their lives
What a relief when it passed, the breath
whistling out of each taut and rounded limb
until they went flat
until I could stack them like unpaid bills
and forget them at the back of a drawer
Hope is a scientist and writer living in Berkeley, California. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in venues including River Teeth, Passages North, The Rumpus, and The Rupture. You can learn more about her and see her full list of publications at hoperhenderson.com.