Poetry | Perhaps

We are not so complicated,

Not fate thrashed, like the heroes

On Instagram or in Homer,

But born splitting into fractals.

I remember how clear

People were when I was a child:

Anna Green never,

Without being asked, took her

Hands out of her sleeves,

Marie Jones was kind

But graceless, so people would

Accidentally forget her on lists;

When I was eleven

There were girls whose wombs

I sensed because of their eyes;

And the dancers and musicians.

I see their pictures sometimes,

I wonder who they are now.

We were little formula of

Fear and selfishness and

Love and courage, and we

Are here now, twenty years on,

Spinning, seeping into shapes,

But perhaps it is simple,

Perhaps we are only that.