Like Others
In the end,
I was like others.
A person.
Sometimes embarrassed,
sometimes afraid.
When “Fire!” was shouted,
some ran toward it,
some away—
I neck-deep among them.
—2017
Credit
from Ledger (Knopf, 2020); first appeared in American Poetry Review. Used by permission of the author, all rights reserved.
Author
Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield is the author of nine collections of poetry, includingThe Beauty: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), which was long listed for the National Book Award. She served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2012 to 2017.
Date Published
03/10/2020