 |
| Marie Yovanovitch at the impeachment inquiry. |
From the day she was born, we knew
this would happen—
and kind of figured
that might happen, too.
It even made us smile in anticipation,
as if life might truly be an adventure—
though it’s not always what we believe,
it’s what we want to teach her.
Sure, there’d be the teething, the testing,
the travail of long division,
apartments without heat,
cold floors of unkindness,
plenty of tears—friends moving away, break-ups,
dishonesty in those we’d trusted.
Maybe even losing a job unjustly—
so much might happen
that demands recourse
where the universe offers none.
What’s sort of true:
life’s as sad, as we make it,
and as happy too.
Humans will do evil things,
from indifference or intent—
and still we move on.
It’s in the moving—
and doing what we know is right,
might finally be enough.
Alan Walowitz has been published various places on the web and off. His work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2017 and 2018 and he is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His chapbook Exactly Like Love is available from Osedax Press, and his full-length book The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press.