1. I ate eggs from a chafing dish while the baker reminded us: the only thing that will hurt you out here are your own bad decisions
2. I felt fettered then un-
3. I listened to the rain
4. I listened to the rain hitting the Carrier compressor, the gravel walk
5. I listened to the rain flattening the clover, I listened to the rain letting up and then it was ozone and drip
6. On the bench under the overhang in the rain I let myself pretend I was younger and childless, like the first time I arrived here
7. The first time I arrived here, I never thought I am small and luminous
8. The body, burdened and miraculous
9. The body as thin-nest boundary
10. I climbed into your body like a cave
11. I was frightened to walk in the dark
12. Late at night even my own movements became unknowable, magnified and rustling
13. The night cut by the moon, punctured by the whistle of the cargo train
14. There was only a hole, there was only forward and more forward
15. The inevitability of a scarred life, your pulse, stitches, this palace of breath
16. go on, go on / again, again / return, return
Copyright © 2019 by Erika Meitner. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 18, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.