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Poem-a-Day

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

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Poem-a-day

Goodbye

—after Akhmadulina

Untitled Document

Some things you don’t come back from.
The body carries on. Of late
it even travels, basks in light.
But knock and there’s no one home.

(How did I love you? With the taste
of iron on my tongue. Try again.
How did I love you? Like a man
destroying what he tries to save.)

The head still does light labor.
But often both the hands fall slack,
and all five senses, in a flock,
go south to weather winter.

Copyright © 2025 by Geoffrey Brock. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 29, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

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Geoffrey Brock

Geoffrey Brock
Photo credit: Andrew Kilgore
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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Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Randall Mann is the Guest Editor of August. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mann 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
The Lose Your Mother Suite VI. “across the surface of my studied speech” Remica Bingham-Risher 02/17/2023
St. Valentine, Bishop of Terni, probably beheaded, was also the patron saint of asthma, beekeepers, and epilepsy, so he might have said Lynne Thompson 02/16/2023
An Act of Love Tommye Blount 02/15/2023
Wetland francine j. harris 02/14/2023
Love Poem Attempt 3/? Taylor Byas 02/13/2023
Challenge Sterling A. Brown 02/12/2023
The Venus of Milo Henrietta Cordelia Ray 02/11/2023
When I See the Stars in the Night Sky Joy Priest 02/10/2023
Aubade: Nocturne Willie Lee Kinard III 02/09/2023
Love Poem in the Black Field Ariana Benson 02/08/2023

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