Sea of strangers exhales.
Something natural
reorders us without consent. We reorder
the coastline. My therapist:
what do you feel
in your stomach? In your chest? I feel nothing. Nothing
matters. I touch nothing. I’m angry. Stop
asking. Have you ever stood on a shore,
felt the water change heights? Felt the wet sand rush to squeeze
your legs too tight?
In each of us:
possibility, a knife wedged
under the mattress, a new strangeness, an undiscovered way
we could touch each other, a bird never heard before
singing, an untaken path,
or genesis.
Copyright © 2022 by Aliah Lavonne Tigh. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 19, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2022 by Katy Didden. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 20, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
She really let herself go.
This story is hard to tell.
When the men you love
insist a woman hold on
never
let herself go
never
let herself loose
never
let herself leave
never
let herself depart
never
let herself mobilize
never
let herself imagine
never
let herself grow
big enough to lift off
the runway
like a jet
full of fuel.
Copyright © 2022 by Stacey Waite. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 22, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.