By Nancy White
sometimes so angry at My Life
packing to leave town that the nerve
down my center so long
tuned to this one diagnosis aka My Life
which will soon turn inside out shuck me
ride on a train and leave the old skin
on the platform or in a stinking multisex
restroom or with the meter expired
so I pay the fare and go
home the mind grows numb
and blackens how long will
it take to grow back
from one severed limb of star-
matter if that is anything can
THE FACT
now that it doesn’t
matter they come
like birds they perch
on the strong swaying
wires of your life
the clamor rises
like bells like barking
you used to leave
the poker in the fire
till it was whitehot but
there was never something
to do with it next
Nancy White is the author of three poetry collections: Sun, Moon, Salt (winner of the Washington Prize), Detour, and Ask Again Later. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Review, FIELD, New England Review, Ploughshares, Rhino, and others. She serves as editor-in-chief at The Word Works in Washington, D. C. and teaches at SUNY Adirondack in upstate NY.