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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Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year.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
Proclamation Stuart Dischell 07/20/2011
The Bottom Denise Duhamel 07/19/2011
The Pressure of the Moment Dara Barrois/Dixon 07/18/2011
Paradise Lost, Book IV, Lines 639–652 John Milton 07/17/2011
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798 William Wordsworth 07/16/2011
Trip Hop Geoffrey Brock 07/15/2011
The Nurse Michael Blumenthal 07/14/2011
Orkney Interior Ian Hamilton Finlay 07/13/2011
Albatross in Co. Antrim Robin Robertson 07/12/2011
Egg Aleš Šteger 07/11/2011

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