Choice

 

 

I swayed and found fire

on my backside, in my insides,

quaking, cracking the edges and the surfaces,

melting the dream that sustained me.

 

Down the slide, there can be no laws but the law

of commitment to love, to making up for winter

by honouring the snow and days of hibernation.

 

Though I have been broken

like a broken dolphin’s fin,

I find hope, in the piled-up books

I plan to read, on the peninsula I leap onto,

leap while I am sinking, leap

from one ledge to another, leap

for summer is ending and I refuse to go with it.

I refuse to sway, joyless, no music.

 

.

Copyright © 2022 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 

.

Published in “Poets’ Espresso Review, Volume 14 Issue 4” November 2022

PE Vol. 14 Issue 4 Summer, Fall 2022 October 2022

https://www.poetsespressoreview.com/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o2E_8r2fEzwYb5F62xIXI8fgvRcEjVhe/view

.

.

First published in “Academy of the Heart and Mind” July 2022

https://academyoftheheartandmind.wordpress.com/2022/07/17/choice-and-other-poems/

.

.

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below: