all the teenage girls are huddled
around the kitchen island
telling secrets, shoulder to shoulder,
spooning leftovers into their mouths, loud
between bites, talking of boys,
bursting into barking
laughter, and I stand at a distance
and remember summer-
camp after eighth grade, the pretty girls
standing in the sunset on the wet
grass in a circle (just yesterday my six-
year-old son asked me: how many sides
does a circle have? I said: none?
he said: no, two, an inside and an outside)
seeing those girls in my kitchen, my daughter
the loudest, on the inside, I say
to my Heart, Heart!
Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?
but already the girls have gone,
their scent lingering like the evening
wind on rugged rocks, their crumbs
like sand all over the counter, their half-
eaten apple slices turning brown
Maya Bernstein is a poet and co-directs Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership’s Certificate in Facilitation. Her poetry grapples with how the past informs the present and the aching desire for connection. Her first collection is called There Is No Place Without You.