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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Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year.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
January Aldrin Regina Valdez 02/04/2025
playing america in spring m.s. RedCherries 02/03/2025
Things Said When He Was Gone Blanche Taylor Dickinson 02/02/2025
The Negro’s “America” Frank Barbour Coffin 02/01/2025
The Creek in Shirley Canyon Robert Hass 01/31/2025
Pears Catherine Bowman 01/30/2025
Apophasis Now James Hannaham 01/29/2025
Poem in Which My Mother Snapped Denise Duhamel 01/28/2025
An inauspicious day from the get-go Hisham Bustani 01/27/2025
The Smile of Innocence Lucretia Maria Davidson 01/26/2025

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