by Cristina Legarda

as the stone is rolled away
with excruciating slowness
the light creeps in 
a finger’s breadth at a time

there’s an event horizon here
between existing and not 
the electric charges in my cells
sparking like flint
or staying cold and dark

when we’re alive,
we distrust the dark
and are terrified 
of confinement

but wrapped in bandages
held together
laid to rest
made to rest
I was beginning to find
the stasis comfortable

the miracle is
I have not decayed
a singularity forms
like the center of a black hole
where matter is infinitely dense

only here it’s that I
am infinitely alive;
I swing my legs off the slab
when I hear the voice
Come forth 
and bandages and all
I heed it
and go

Cristina Legarda was born in the Philippines and spent her early childhood there before moving to Bethesda, Maryland. She is now a practicing physician in Boston. Her work has appeared in America magazine, The Dewdrop, Dappled Things, Plainsongs, FOLIO, Ruminate, The Good Life Review, and others.

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