Every now and then, I come across a poet who makes my jaw drop, my heart skip a beat–my mind, too. A poet who surprises me line after line, poem after poem. They are like magicians who really do pull rabbits out of hats or make coins disappear or saw people in half. No matter how hard I try, I can't figure out how they do it. Amy Woolard is that kind of poet. Her debut book, Neck of the Woods, is a must-read, and I can't wait for her next collection. A former waitress and an accomplished Civil Rights lawyer, she probably doesn't have as much time to write as I would like her to. I find myself looking for her poems online whenever I need a hit of inspiration, a dose of awe, or that feeling, Oh wow, so that's what a poem can do.
Delivery
Paper pusher, I’ll tell you what it feels like
To spend the exact cash you make the same
Night you make it. That sky velveted as
An empty ring box. Disintegration coming out
Of the speakers again. Neck-deep in the quarry swimming
Hole. This thing between us like snapping a bar of cold
Chocolate. I like wading into my weakness &
Treading there like the final girl. This life no
Bigger than a drugstore makeup aisle, than waking
Only to learn of the late-night car accident. Who said
To stitch shut is to mend. Each morning the dogs kept
Us alive, even when we hadn’t planned it. The room slow
Spun the way the water had moved around us, & the bare
Light on the water, those apparitions—our love’s
Strategy, a deer tendering into the kitchen through
A back door left open, through the rooms where we
Undressed. Bring me to myself & sew the horizon
Into place. Out of the winedark that sun we like
Was coming back into style. What we borrowed
We know we cannot return. I held your jaw
Like a piece of fruit. Your hand rested on the warm
Animal between us, running in its sleep.
Published in The New York Review
Late Shift
Those days I could only love someone who was ashamed
Of their teeth. The way the dogs will always sleep in the spots
They know I’ll need to step. The things we do so not to lose
Each other. So as to lose something every day. Church key,
Bar rag, the obscene puckered red of maraschino, the wrecked
Line cook in the walk-in. His chilled kiss. How it tastes like a future
Eviction. Thieves in the temple of our bodies. Years later I will
Still feel most at home when I eat standing up. When I settle up
In cash. When I barter for your attention. Fingernail of heat
Lightning tapping the tabled sky. A broken pint glass
In the ice bin. Every shift Sinéad sings This is the last day
Of our acquaintance. There are nights I give up on the world
But not my body. How in the Bruegel, if you didn’t know
The title you might not look for Icarus at all, a paper lantern
Giving its wish back to ground long after we’ve left. Push
A fork into a fish & what you get is a meal. Push a knife into
A knuckle & what you get is to be changed. Like Icarus, what I want
Is to start over but not do it all again. Like Icarus, I wanted the light
To love me back. How in my lungs still nests the fur of every animal I
Ever kept. Years later the gods will have me cough up a snow leopard.
I thought the main selling point of breathing was we didn’t have to
Be reminded to do it. I never wanted children but I always liked the one
About Athena pouring full-grown from Zeus’ forehead. How did we survive
Before Advil, love. Before the armor of us glinting in the closed kitchen
Dark. The way a creaky floorboard’s one job is to wait. Service means
The spoon appears before you know you need it. The water looks
To refill itself. The napkin calls a truce. When something is soft we believe
We deserve to touch it & so we do. When something is sharp we long to
Perfect it. Nothing belongs to us until last call: one more &
Then no more. The lights go on & it’s time to cough up
What’s owed. Build a cathedral in the dead of night & then give it
A shift meal, a smoking section, a cover charge, a swinging door, a till
To reckon. Those days we didn’t have a prayer, separated our love
From each other like cupping a yolk between the cracked half
Shells back & again until it’s perfect. Forgive ourselves. Give
Ourselves the tenderest title & call it a day. How could we ever
How could we not. Baby, draw the spoked sun in the corner
Of our afternoon sky. Wake us in its slow-cooked gaze.
Published online and in the print edition of the March 18, 2024, issue of The New Yorker