Morning Poem

Morning Poem 

after Mary Oliver

I am not sure how to explain to you
what it is like to wake up 
and feel that black trench 
widening inside all the way down 
your body

and to feel in your arms the drive
to wrench it open wider
and to tear off your own
skin in rough strips
and throw it in

pull yourself open until 
you swallow yourself up
until you are only trench

but instead to collect yourself
and get out of the bed and to make it,
and to arrange the pillows,
fold up the pajamas,
start the day.


Amy Isikoff Newell
August 12, 2022