Were
grief a state of healing
and not the act of paying
attention
to what will have been, what’s now
disappearing from the Earth,
I
would teach you to believe
in reflourishment. Instead,
you
must learn endurance
in the face of all that won’t
be
saved, my chick
who hatched among
the
egg-lumped coils of a dozing snake
while I clung
to
the nest and sang.
Neil Surkan's most recent collection of poems is a chapbook, Ruin, from knife|fork|book. He is also the author of Unbecoming, Their Queer Tenderness, On High, and Super, Natural. neilsurkan.com
the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
