I’m tired of worrying.

So I built a burn pile

out of the layers

of heart-shaped leaves

that clutter my dreams,

each one

a handwritten letter,

written in a sprawling stream

at the edges of sleep.

I gathered the dark

dead limbs of long ago

and lightly placed them

one by one

over the leaves

making a kind of dwelling

for all of my wrongdoings,

worries for my children,

for all of my questions

about how it will end,

and where do we go—

I lit a match in the shadow

of sleeplessness and watched

it burn bright,

the silky dust of it

rising into the air

leaving its love-worn ash

on the floor of my chest

in the shape of a heart.