The fear of not being wanted. And the shame of that fear.
Children’s voices through the open window;
clover on a hillside where I sit;
the word autumn. I can’t know any faster.
I make myself sick trying.
For no reason I remember the coyotes near the cabin
where I stayed alone. Like boys at night,
someone said. Lots of things sound far-fetched to start.
Mary Ann Samyn’s most recent collection is My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Poetry Prize (Oberlin College Press, 2013). She is Professor of English and Director of the MFA program at West Virginia University.