Poem a Day 2026

on a triangle rock

slipping into the lake, 

we wonder together 

if these are the good times

before it all falls apart. 

when will the shoe drop, 

when will we be refugees, 

when will we suffer those 

losses that have been 

so eloquently imagined 

for us by prophets 

in whose world we still live. 

when will we lose this; 

the meal waiting for 

us across the lake, 

the ease of playing 

in water, pretending 

to drown struggling to 

stay afloat grasping at 

each others soft, well-fed bodies. 

when will this all be taken, 

when will we actually be 

drowning with nothing to cling to: 

not even the prophecies we read 

in wonder, prophecies for 

a world that has come already, 

oracles that allow us to 

grieve what has been never ours.

when will we have something 

to grieve, when will something 

be worth dying for, when will 

our life together truly begin. 

there has has to be a word 

for anticipating the loss 

of something we never had, 

as if grieving having nothing to grieve. 

instead of speaking, 

we cough up lake water and kiss, 

making childish noises as we cling 

together making our bodies a sinking raft:

unsure if these are the good times 

before it all passes away, 

before war or famine, 

before we learn that one of us has died 

before we are mothers, 

before our lives begin.