The Map of Salt and Stars

by Zeyn Joukhadar

So I picture a big heart under everything, beating under the weight of expecting better. I picture this big heart under the sea, pumping compassion like thick blood, draining anger and hurt. That heart fills up the water with warmth. It lifts me like a mustard seed in the yawning mouth of a whale. The water bleeds black under me, and God smiles through the cracks in broken things. I am a crumb of porcelain. I am a lost tooth. I am a shard of lapis.

Is this why they bury people, to help them kiss the earth?