On the far side of pleasure
On the far side of pleasure I sit on the couch it’s 2:50 a.m. and I hear him walk through the hall to pee I close my eyes and hear a terrible pounding of keys a fever of gardens in this triangle of a house outside and everywhere stores empty of disinfectant bodies eaten by the sun a low hum beneath the sink in consonance with the clouds I’m called to climb but instead crawl to our child and pick them up gently they hold my grief and whisper go as I run with them toward the sea
Copyright © 2026 by Samuel Ace. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 7, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“Written during our latest pandemic, unending genocide, and the incessant political attacks on our personhoods, I often wake in the middle of the night with a racing heart, my nightmares urging escape. Beyond any concern for myself, what I wish for most is the safety of my child, of all children, who, a wise friend often tells me, are our greatest teachers. In this poem I believe the sea, in its vastness, represents not only the geography of escape, but the immeasurable embrace, joy, and survival of our gorgeous communities, which exist in spite of the daily assaults of our time.”
—Samuel Ace
Samuel Ace
