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The only daily poetry series publishing new work by today’s poets.

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Poem-a-day

Burn Out

Everything is fine: a means to endure  
news cycles, historic cycles, menstrual 

cycles. This is walking home after work,  
crawling into bed naked. Night, quiet with 

snow. I am an empty bank account.  
I am a pylon glowing in the dark. I am  
a primal scream. I am not here.         

The body speaks first. If that doesn’t work,  
the mind empties: a crate of crabs scuttling

toward nothingness. Authoritarianism 
blossoms like a corpse flower: foul men 

spread their stench across the globe.  
I remember these songs. It’s all on fire. 

A meteor // a virus // a bomb   
like a dark-eyed angel hurtles toward us. 

I’d like to see the ocean lap against a glacier 
before the end. I’d like to see the northern 

lights. I’d like to watch effigies of foul men  
burn in the desert. I’d like to be there, reel there, 
at the end.

Copyright © 2026 by Amy M. Alvarez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 23, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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Amy M. Alvarez

Amy M. Alvarez
Photo credit: Adam Lewis
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Khaled Mattawa is the Guest Editor of December. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mattawa about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
Dear Tiara Sean Thomas Dougherty 05/05/2011
Samurai Song Robert Pinsky 05/04/2011
The Libraries Didn’t Burn Elaine Equi 05/03/2011
The Book of the Dead Man (Food) Marvin Bell 05/02/2011
from Crossing State Lines [Shirtsleeved afternoons] Rita Dove 05/01/2011
Last Maxine Scates 04/30/2011
In a Beautiful Country Kevin Prufer 04/29/2011
Dark Matter Jack Myers 04/28/2011
That This Susan Howe 04/27/2011
forgetting something Nick Flynn 04/26/2011

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