When Your Life Looks Back by Jane Hirshfield
"Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face. / No back of the world existed, / No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for."
i am running into a new year by Lucille Clifton
"it will be hard to let go / of what i said to myself / about myself / when i was sixteen and / twenty-six and thirty-six / even thirty-six"