by Meghan Sterling

Joy is always possible, the dark lines

of the clouds in a woven wire above

the house, the street thrumming with

last night’s storm blue as smoke. I had

thought I would shatter like a fistful

of rose petals, that the rain would undo

me. I had thought that I needed the world’s

approval to matter. But the world is growing

small as a thimble. The world is threaded

with silver memory. My daughter swallows

the stars. My lover breathes in the dark. Why

did it take me so long to discover what’s true?

Joy in the puddles. Joy in the eaves. Moonlight,

midnight, joy at the house’s black throat.

Meghan Sterling (she/her/hers) lives in Maine. Her collections are These Few Seeds (Terrapin Books), Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora (Harbor Editions), Comfort the Mourners (Everybody Press) and View from a Borrowed Field (Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Book Prize). You Are Here to Break Apart (Lily Poetry Review Press), is forthcoming in 2025.