Poem haunted by the sound of a long e
I’ve never been able to tell this story.
I was wooed by my favorite writer in 1990.
We met in the faculty lounge of her university in the city.
She offered me three free years of writing poetry.
She tried to charm me as I ate my meal silently.
I didn’t say my boyfriend had begun behaving violently.
I didn’t say I was carrying what might become a baby.
I didn’t want to be the kind of person who inspired pity.
I never thanked her for the opportunity.
It wouldn’t be the last time he hit me, although I left him eventually.
After the procedure, the report: female, no genetic abnormality.
For decades, I wouldn’t think about what might have been, if only.
The poems I might have written. And the girl. Her body.
An animal that’s trapped will do what’s necessary.
Copyright © 2026 by Kerry Sherin Wright. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 6, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I wrote ‘Poem haunted by the sound of a long e’ a few years ago while at the Community of Writers. On the last day of workshop, this poem took shape. It felt like handling nitroglycerine to write it: a slurry of memories, images, and emotions had been condensing under pressure for thirty years, and I really believed as I worked on it that either I or the poem would explode. My generous roommates—strangers who’d quickly become friends—let me read it to them, and nothing bad happened, and then I could see its emerging form.”
—Kerry Sherin Wright
Kerry Sherin Wright
