who me? No, I'm just a worm.

by Jane Hirshfield

It was like this: you were happy, then you were sad, then happy again, then not.

It went on. You were innocent or you were guilty. Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent. Mostly, it seems you were silent — what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness — between you, there is nothing to forgive — but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you or your days: they will be wrong, they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man, all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Jonathan Joss was an Indigenous, gay man who was murdered on the first day of Pride month as well as Indigenous History Month. He died protecting his trans husband. Homophobia and racism aren’t marks of the past, and this is a heart breaking reminder of that.