POETRY, OR ON STAYING PUT by Mary Ann Samyn


 
 
For months, nothing need be written.
Grief behaves how it wants.
I take up embroidery. I set it down.
Theories don’t come close.
A handkerchief may be beautiful, too.
Up to now, my work has been to hope.
My father’s were plain white.
Ironing them, a girlhood pastime.
I repeat myself when I can’t help myself.
That’s just the nature of it.
What is practical for me? How shall I live?
 
 
 
Mary Ann Samyn is the author of six books of poetry, including My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Prize, and the forthcoming Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance, winner of the 2017 42 Miles Press Poetry Prize. She teaches in the MFA program at West Virginia University.