Giving

The featherbed, we say, “gives,” meaning
it accepts one’s shape. Water gives
(ice doesn’t). Air gives. The givers
give way, wrap themselves around us,
shape themselves to us, receive and
release us easily with a sigh or kiss
of gentle suction or a rustle of sheets
or a smile in brimming eyes. What
can you be given? Apparently yourself,
or your own form shaping another,
apparently the right to be part of and
separate from another. What you can be given
depends on the gentleness of your asking:
If you hit the water too hard, it becomes
stone. If you force yourself through air
too fast, it shudders, splits, jolting you,
claps together behind you (BOOM). Violence
shatters whatever opens to embrace you;
splinters stick to you; the violent never
have anything whole, never leave anything
wholly behind.

–Dean Blehert