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

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Poem-a-day

Poem in Which the Poet Ventriloquizes the Beloved

I’m sorry I’m taking the car to the airport that is closer to,
rather than farther away from, the oncoming hurricane. 
In the parking garage of my love for you, I circle around
quietly, looking for a space to put the day’s best guesses, 
one not too far from the kiosk of you, standing mute and 
ready to hand me a small slip of paper that reads  I’m sorry
I can’t tell you what I want.  So we’re both mildly apologetic 
all the time, which is a small courtesy, two pulsars fanning
light at one another in bursts detectable years later. Why
won’t you take this bundle of daffodils. Why have the 
daffodils turned into dirty forks. I’m sorry about my socks.
See, there I go again. In the backyard, a vine from next
door has crawled up and over the fence and has flourished
there, a great nest of green six feet off the ground. I’d
trim it, but you’re holding the hedge clippers against your
hair. You’re saying that your hair is morning glories and 
you’d like to keep the morning glories if possible. I don’t 
even know what morning glories are exactly; my mother
is an excellent gardener but I have neither her memory for
color nor your cataloguing tendencies and it’s late in the day
and I’m sorry for that. It’s difficult to hold you in this
shaft of light when you keep taking three steps away and 
sitting down in the nearest chair, one hand on each knee
like a monument. It’s difficult to feel your body against
my side in sleep, the desires it holds distant and tired, 
like an animal that has walked too far in an inhospitable
climate. I am full of water but as thirst is a form of 
suffering, I would not wish it upon you. Instead, I will
work my way through your dreaming, which I know is of
endless snow fields. I will wait in this puddle of melt. 
Perhaps, one day, you will come to me with your skin 
near to brittle from the cold you love so much. Perhaps on 
that day we can begin to think together about the seasons, 
about how spring can also arrive in precision, if you let it.

Copyright © 2026 by Kimberly Quiogue Andrews. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 26, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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Kimberly Quiogue Andrews

Kimberly Quiogue Andrews
Photo credit: Curtis Perry
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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
If You Get There Before I Do Dick Allen
Let not my love be call'd idolatry (Sonnet 105) William Shakespeare
In Two Seconds Mark Doty
My Egypt Mary Crow
For-The-Spirits-Who-Have-Rounded-The-Bend IIVAQSAAT dg nanouk okpik
Two Who Crossed a Line Countee Cullen
I cannot live with You (640) Emily Dickinson
The Problem With Sappho Charles Rafferty
The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala, XC Al-Ma‘arri
Falling James Dickey

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