Where Grief Bends Light

a litany for the in-between—
this is the pause
where breath fractures its own bone,
where words snag—
like kelp on red rocks—
unyielding, wet with salt and silence.

we are bodies stitched
from depth-water—
pain surfacing verbatim
in the skin’s brief flicker.

there is a hinge between
the unsaid and the sacred,
where grief bends light
and memory opens—
fresh, salt-bright.

i gather what’s left—
the half-breath of prayer,
your absence sparking
like fire caught in the
body’s quiet.

it is not a story told in lines,
but in pulse,
the tremble of a body relearning
how to remain
within its own ache.

here is where i return—
not whole, but accurate,
not tidy, but true—
where silence speaks in tongues
and wears the voice of tides.

By: Topher Shields

Topher Shields is a poet from Aotearoa New Zealand whose work traces the sacred fractures between silence, ritual, and inheritance. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, The Shore, The Bangalore Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Tangled Locks Journal, The Dewdrop, Half and One, and Hip Pocket Press (Canary Winter 2025–26).