Good by Robin Myers
Good
Robin MyersFor a while there was a mantra and it went like this. You are equally capable of hurting and being hurt. You are equally capable of healing and being healed. You didn’t of course believe it. The hurt part mostly. Day after day, you sank to your ankles in the eddies of your decentest intentions. You do not have to be good, a poem said. But you did! You did. You did, and you wanted to be good, and you wanted to be good. Still you glanced sidelong. Still you wrung, clung, harbored, balked, and spooned transgenic soups from the borrowed pot. Still your longing swerved. You were equally capable of healing and being healed. You were equally capable of hurting and being hurt. The tide trickled ravishing around your feet.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Guernica, February 2024.
ABOUT ROBIN MYERS
Robin Myers is a poet and translator. Her most recent translations in both poetry and prose are We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (New Directions, 2025); The Brush (Archipelago Books, 2024) by Eliana Hernández-Pachón; What Comes Back (Copper Canyon Press, 2024) by Javier Peñalosa; Copy (Wave Books, 2021) by Dolores Dorantes; Animals at the End of the World by Gloria Susana Esquivel (University of Texas Press, 2020); and Cars on Fire by… (more)
Read more poems by Robin Myers • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- This is Day 22 of The Sealey Challenge 2026—a community challenge to read one book of poetry a day for the month of August, named after Nicole Sealey.
- Explore other works in pursuit of: longing • guilt • growth • Or browse the index
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