“Of the Individuals for the Individuals however by Me,” by Lucie Brock-Broido

What’s it I’ll have left once I go away, little however the milkweed silk,
My inky fetishes, my spirit-papers and my urns, just like the less complicated

Despot in Afghanistan—whose solely leavings have been a small herd
Of largely nonetheless unrusted Land Rovers with linen songbooks holding

   All Islamic hymns and a few vintage Americana
   (Judy Garland, Andy Williams, Bing),

And just some blond-gold effigies of self, within the gnarled backyard
The place he had spent limitless hours petting his favourite cow.

The half-life of neptunium is 2.1 million years. My second
Is over—essentially the most velvet of the annuals reside far lower than a 12 months.

   Relating to loss: I had been its isotope
   From the youngest age. Not momentous,

Simply the small bunkers of a kid’s lack of long-term reminiscence
And its greenest lengths of moss. A pet inexperienced turtle expired after

The lengthy scorching summer season of my very own short-term amnesia, the drought
Of my forgetting to water him whereas I used to be away using noticed ponies

Within the South. Each reminiscence is a loss of life, even the candy ones:
No matter rabbit consuming parsley within the {photograph}

   (I used to be a-beam with pleasure) in our unkempt yard—the place mint grew
   Tall and by chance—is gone.

However at a sure second in the midst of the summer season darkish
Standing on the porch within the dotted Swiss of night time, in case you watch

Virtually microscopically, you’ll be able to understand the orange daylilies then
Start to develop again after loss of life earlier than your eyes.

In my view, I’m not scheduled but to go,
                  Not wherever, simply now.

—Lucie Brock-Broido (1956-2018)