I Was Told the Sunlight Was a Cure by Hanif Abdurraqib
"on the days I want to be alive I tell myself I deserve a marching band / or at least a string section to announce my arrival
Sunflowers by Jenny George
"Having died / all the way back to the root, I grow again / into a version of the thing I love"
The Two-Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin
"But tonight he is alive and in the north / field with his mother. It is a perfect / summer evening
Poem Full of Worry Ending with My Birth by Tarfia Faizullah
"I worry I can no longer pretend / enough to get through another / year of pretending
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
"Life is short and the world / is at least half terrible, and for every kind / stranger, there is one who would break you
What’s Broken by Dorianne Laux
"Last summer’s / pot of parsley and mint, white root / shooting like streamers through the cracks."
“Why Is This Age Worse…?” by Anna Akhmatova
"In a stupor of grief and dread / have we not fingered the foulest wounds / and left them unhealed by our hands?"
The Leash by Ada Limón
"But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing / like a rusted-over garage door, and I can still move / my living limbs into the world without too much / pain