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.
Copyright © 2025 by Chet’la Sebree. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 9, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“‘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
Chet’la Sebree
Chet’la Sebree is the author of Mistress (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2019) selected by Cathy Park Hong as the winner of the 2018 New Issues Poetry Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work–Poetry.