18 sustained

twenty three years of love sustained
with only small fractures
at the beginning and at the end
little crackly snappings
that would have split and shattered
or closed and healed
or neither
and in the middle of it all
that gaping cavernous hole that he made
and not by himself
that they both fell into
and stayed there struggling
for air for light for warmth for comfort
too proud to turn to each other

page 31 word 18
Alive 
Piers Paul Read
Moving and ultimately inspiring account of how a group of young men survived a horrific plane crash high, high up in the Andes. The miracle of their survival, rescue and return to this world long after they were given up for dead really does transcend all the laws of probability and it seems to me that it touches on something other, some greatness beyond, greater than us.