What had been treacherous the first time
had become second nature, releasing
the emergency brake, then rolling backwards
in little bursts, braking the whole way down
the long steep drive. Back then
we lived on the top of a hill.
I was leaving—the thing we both knew
and didn’t speak of all summer. While you
were at work, I built a brown skyline of boxes,
sealed them with a roll of tape
that made an incessant ripping sound.
We were cheerful at dinner and unusually kind.
At night we slept under a single sheet,
our bodies a furnace if curled together.
It was July. I could feel my pupils contract
when I went outside. Back then I thought only about
how you wouldn’t come with me.
Now I consider what it took for you to help me go.
On that last day. When I stood
in a wrinkled dress with aching arms.
When there was only your mouth at my ear
whispering to get in the truck, then wait
until I was calm enough to turn the key.
Only then did we know. How it felt
to have loved to the end, and then past the very end.
What did you do, left up there in the empty house?
I don’t know why. I
don’t know how we keep living
in a world that never explains why.
Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Grotz. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 12, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
It’s a thrill to say No.
The way it smothers
everything that beckons―
Any baby in a crib
will meet No’s palm
on its mouth.
And nothing sweet
can ever happen
―
to No―
who holds your tongue captive
behind your teeth, whose breath
whets the edge
―
of the guillotine―
N, head of Team Nothing,
and anti-ovum O.
And so the pit can never
engender
―
the cherry―
in No, who has drilled a hole
inside your body―
No.
Say it out loud.
Why do you love the hole
No makes.
Copyright © 2017 by Dana Levin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 9, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.