I Never Want To Go When It’s Time by Kate Light
I Never Want To Go When It's Time
Kate LightI never want to go when it’s time
to go; I want to hang back, to read
a book, or make another line rhyme.
I always think that what I really need
is there in the place that I am leaving,
not waiting in the new place I ached
to go to. I go, but with a kind of grieving,
saying, Why’d I ever wish to shake
things up, when things were really fine?
To be with him I always had to yank
my roots, I always had to pull my bones
by heartstrings, to tear my spine
from land to land; sometimes I walked a plank
to reach that world, and breathe, and write these poems.
MARGINALIA
I can’t shake you off, no matter how hard I try. Listening to Nina Simone. Smoking and reading this poem.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Open Slowly by Kate Light, published by Zoo Press, 2003. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
ABOUT KATE LIGHT
Kate Light’s works include three previous volumes of poetry: Gravity’s Dream (winner of the Donald Justice Award, 2006), Open Slowly (Zoo Press, 2003), and The Laws of Falling Bodies (winner of the Nicholas Roerich Prize, 1997). Her poetry has appeared in the Paris Review, the Hudson Review, Washington Post Book World, Feminist Studies, the Dark Horse, Mezzo-Camin, the Formalist, Evansville Review, New York Sun, the anthologies Western Wind, Villanelles, Obsession:… (more)
Read more poems by Kate Light • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: longing • restlessness • transition • Or browse the index
- If this work resonates with you, please consider supporting the archive. Thank you for reading.




