I’m Trying to be a Person

I’m Trying to be a Person

on whom nothing is lost. I have ruined several custards with scalding impatience.
            Not a good cry, or a bad cry, or a cry for this teacup

that holds—so gently!—everyone in space so there is time
            to cry. When something is lost, only that something

knows where it is, even if it comes back silent as an uncut page.

Forgive me for thinking
            I should not have to bear lost buttons, earrings, mittens, children.

What if I cannot keep
            things in orbit? If I cannot slow the fury

that spins things away from me, in all dimensions,
            so that the carrot forced from the tar-black soil offers up

a golden ring encircling the root—

Image: ” Orbitals (radial), Gallery of Computation “ by Jared Tarbell, licensed under CC 2.0

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Rachel Abramowitz

Rachel Abramowitz's poems and reviews have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House Online, The Threepenny Review, Seneca Review, The Kenyon Review Online, Crazyhorse, Tupelo Quarterly, and others. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of Oxford, and has taught English Literature at Barnard College in New York.

Latest posts by Rachel Abramowitz (see all)

• I’m Trying to be a Person - March 31, 2020