In Russian nesting dolls, the smallest
is the seed doll, signifying the soul.
Once you find her, what she holds
is dense and hard to open—
in a basic sense impossible.
But more than the portly mother,
she makes room for all the others,
even when she’s just the dream at their heart—
the hope or assurance of a solidity,
of a glory and its weight,
of a life become so true
that it intrinsically creates
around itself
and for everyone
space.
The Inner Work
Deborah J. Shore has spent most of her life housebound or bedridden with sudden onset severe ME/CFS. This neuroimmune illness has made engagement with and composition of literature costly and, during long seasons, impossible. Nonetheless, she has won poetry competitions at the Anglican Theological Review and the Alsop Review and has been published in Christianity & Literature, THINK, Christian Century, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Relief Journal, and Ekstasis among others.