off the shore of oneself as in . . .
sometimes you can’t stay on your own mainland.
some story of exile, unique each time: a home
you feel apart from rather than of
the re-negotiation among space and rulership.
an aimless god, his insistence on
a fantasy of order
the number you call to confirm the time, that tells you
where to go by putting you there—horizon beyond
the heart you know best—so it hurts, so you learn.
the aimless god in you, his lucite throne,
the space you’ve made, what you could
imagine from whence you came
Copyright © 2023 by Renia White. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 6, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
“The ‘off the shore. . .’ poems follow a bevy of questions about finding one’s place in the world. Where must we be (where have we been all along) in order to have survived?”
—Renia White
Renia White
Renia White is the author of Casual Conversation (BOA Editions, 2022), selected for the Blessing the Boats series. The recipient of a 2021 Philip Freund Prize, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.