Flood
I woke to a voice within the room. perhaps. The room itself: "You're wasting this life expecting disappointment." I packed my bag in the night and peered in its leather belly to count the essentials. Nothing is essential. To the east, the flood has begun. Men call to each other on the water for the comfort of voices. Love surprises us. It ends.
Reprinted from Wideawake Field © 2007 by Eliza Griswold, by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Learn more about FSG poets at fsgpoetry.com.