I leave my sixteenth year of sighs
and head into my final one
although it seems I’ve just begun
exploring ways to agonize.
The bitter’s sweet, my losses wise,
and life a weight. I pray my run
of bad luck ends; I’d be undone
if Death did shut her lovely eyes.
Sadly, I stay, but long to go,
and long for longing that has passed,
and fail at partial resolutions.
New tears for old desires show
I am unchanged; I have held fast
despite a thousand revolutions.
(translated from the Italian of Petrarch)
—A. M. Juster
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…
The Possibility of Possibility
"Might could” is a Southern expression meaning “maybe I could” or “I might be able to,” conveying…
The False Promise of No Contact
Around the time nineteen-year-old Alice began cutting ties with her family, she announced on social media that…
