To be saved by ideas: a fantasy I harbored.
In those days, there was always something
from which I needed saving. The past, its
expansive grammar, the way my grief was
a kind of deranged hope. I wanted a different
country, an old language to burst forth like
a hidden river. “Love is the cause of what
ails you,” wrote Lauren Berlant. Oof. Most likely,
no man is a refuge. But we can try all the same.
It is raining again. I’m struggling to remember
everything. Thank god: it is not too late to tell
a new story. Thank god: a sonnet is not that
deep of a chasm. Soon, I may climb out toward
the long expanse of our remaking.
Copyright © 2026 by Billy-Ray Belcourt. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 8, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
