When It Comes Down To It

Trip the door to stick, 
we with the bag mouths

yawping in the blank
space where our joy

once lived, little blooming 
weed, purple dead nettle 

where have you gone
good flourishing? Red 

feather I found bent 
on the wildflower berm

soaked but not soaked 
simply shadowed still 

unweighted, insistent 
it belongs to flight. 

Credit

From The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2022). Copyright © 2022 by Ada Limón. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Editions. milkweed.org