The music was turned up too loud for talking
but everybody talked. Someone I barely knew
was drinking wine and had an arm around me.
The liquid in my glass trembled. This was the year
the chokecherry in the yard grew tall enough
to find the wind, a thing like itself, shifting
and invisible, feeling all the leaves and turning them,
like once you turned my coat collar at the door
to make it even, and then I was ready.
Copyright © 2026 by Jenny George. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 3, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
