An End

I once told a love they only loved
the beginnings of things, and I wonder
now, years after our end, if that was
a reflection, projection, for I love
the slip and grip of an unfamiliar
pen in my hand, the crisp white or 
pale beige of a new notebook page, 
the first key flip in an apartment
ready to be smudged, ready for a new 
configuration of my altar—singing bowl 
and sandstone, selenite incense holder 
to honor my fresh dead; for I am 
intrigued when a centrifuge spins 
my blood 3,000 revolutions per minute
to render me perhaps anew to me again—
better able to feed me the correct
concoction of controlled toxins to 
reregulate, so my heart lumps my throat 
for the right reasons when there is 
a swell of cells becoming spinal filaments 
spindle-stringing themselves;
for I know I’ll be eager-eared for 
your first yelp before I am keen to 
your cues and calls for help; for 
in the beginning, I can be calm 
like a buoyant body floating 
in gentle wind-roiled water 
push-pulling me away and toward 
the shore of knowing what is 
to come—which pressure 
causes metamorphoses,
protostar pre-nucleosynthesis,
and which pressure produces fissures, 
fault-lining matrix-lodged turquoise and jade;
for there’s knowledge I don’t want
so I scramble search my way
back to the water, the garden, the egg.

Credit

Copyright © 2025 by Chet’la Sebree. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 9, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“‘An End’ is the final poem in my poetry collection Blue Opening, which grapples primarily with the origins of life, of language, of the universe, and of illness. Throughout the book, the speaker wrestles with whether she wants to be a site of origin through motherhood. As I started to consider how I might close the collection, I desired an ending that didn’t feel weighted with finality, craved one that felt expansive, like a beginning, an opening. I also wanted an ending that felt breathless, like we were running toward something, even if that something invites us to begin again.”
—Chet’la Sebree