"Did Rise" by Jessica Rae Bergamino

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day January 9, 2020   Did Rise   Jessica Rae Bergamino

Did tear along. Did carry the sour heave of memory. Did fold my body upon the pillow's curve, did teach myself to pray. Did pray. Did sleep. Did choir an echo to swell through time. Did pocket watch, did compass. Did whisper a girl from the silence of ghost. Did travel on the folded map to the roaring inside. Did see myself smaller, at least, stranger, where the hinge of losing had not yet become loss. Did vein, did hollow in light, did hold my own chapped hand. Did hair, did makeup, did press the pigment on my broken lip. Did stutter. Did slur. Did shush my open mouth, the empty glove. Did grace, did dare, did learn the way forgiveness is the heaviest thing to bare. Did grieve. Did grief. Did check the weather, choose the sweater, did patch the jeans worn out along the seam. Did purchase, did pressure, did put the safety on the scissors. Did shuttle myself away, did haunt, did swallow a tongue of sweat formed on the belly of a day-old glass. Did ice, did block, did measure the doing. Did carry. Did return. Did slumber, did speak. Did wash blood from the bitten nail, the thumb that bruised. Did wash the dirt-stained face, the dirt-stained sheets. Did take the pills. Did not take the pills. Cut the knots from my own matted hair.            Copyright © 2020 by Jessica Rae Bergamino. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 9, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "'Did Rise' emerged at the very end of my Saturn Return, an astrological period of radical growth. I was in the first year of a PhD program and living alone for the first time as an adult, which also meant it was the first time I was confronting—with an equal balance of pride and shame—the person I had grown up to be. The poem isn't an account of the result, but it reckons with the process. It is after Lucie Brock-Broido." —Jessica Rae Bergamino   Jessica Rae Bergamino is the author of UNMANNED, (Noemi Press, 2018) winner of the Noemi Press Poetry Prize. She lives in Seattle, Washington. Poetry by Bergamino   UNMANNED (Noemi Press, 2018) "What I Did Wrong" by Marie Howe "19th Birthday in Paris" by Gabrielle Civil "Waking This Morning Dreamless After Long Sleep" by Jane Hirshfield January Guest Editor: Meg Day   Thanks to Meg Day, author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A about Day's curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038