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The Leash

Ada Limon on

Published in Poem Of The Day

After the birthing of bombs of forks and fear,
the frantic automatic weapons unleashed,
the spray of bullets into a crowd holding hands,
that brute sky opening in a slate metal maw
that swallows only the unsayable in each of us, what's
left? Even the hidden nowhere river is poisoned
orange and acidic by a coal mine. How can
you not fear humanity, want to lick the creek
bottom dry to suck the deadly water up into
your own lungs, like venom? Reader, I want to
say, Don't die. Even when silvery fish after fish
comes back belly up, and the country plummets
into a crepitating crater of hatred, isn't there still
something singing? The truth is: I don't know.
But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing
like a rusted-over garage door, and I can still move
my living limbs into the world without too much
pain, can still marvel at how the dog runs straight
toward the pickup trucks break-necking down
the road, because she thinks she loves them,
because she's sure, without a doubt, that the loud
roaring things will love her back, her soft small self
alive with desire to share her goddamn enthusiasm,
until I yank the leash back to save her because
I want her to survive forever. Don't die, I say,
and we decide to walk for a bit longer, starlings
high and fevered above us, winter coming to lay
her cold corpse down upon this little plot of earth.
Perhaps, we are always hurtling our body towards
the thing that will obliterate us, begging for love
from the speeding passage of time, and so maybe
like the dog obedient at my heels, we can walk together
peacefully, at least until the next truck comes.



About this poem
"It's been so hard to write anything joyful these days with so many terrible things happening everywhere. I finally thought of my dog and how she loves her little life no matter what. This year, I want to be more like her, throwing myself ecstatically into this world over and over regardless of what's coming next."
-Ada Limon

About Ada Limon
Ada Limon is the author of "Bright Dead Things" (Milkweed Editions, 2015), which was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award. She works as a writer and creative writing instructor and splits her time between Lexington, Ky., and Sonoma, Calif.

***
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Ada Limon. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate


 


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