Awake by Kerrin McCadden

Awake

This morning I bramble toward waking—

alarm alarm alarm snarling my dreams like little girls 

around a pile of marbles arguing quitsies, 

no quitsies. This morning I don’t know. This morning 

I am lagging with my dead, reminding them 

they have already gone first. I knuckle down on the day, 

make strides and comebacks. I ride a train 

and write and keep crossing out the word rather. 

I never know what I want until afternoon 

and sometimes trim the walkway instead of thinking. 

I pull the curtain on who I am, keep shame 

for my sleeping like a terrarium of whistles. Somewhere, 

someone finds me phenomenal—I stand 

so tall and keep the future as a pet. Together we swim 

the headwaters like children who don’t know 

the rules. I forget who is playing for fair and who for keeps.

Kerrin McCadden is the author of American Wake (Black Sparrow Press, March, 2021) and Landscape with Plywood Silhouettes, winner of the Vermont Book Award and the New Issues Poetry Prize, as well as the chapbook Keep This to Yourself, winner of the Button Poetry Prize. She lives in South Burlington, Vermont.