To January

Written By Nathan Spoon
 

I open my heart to what is here. 

A sky. Two kinds of air 
and sunlight. An entire world. 

All the endless things I love 
and the things I disagree with 
that somehow remain of interest. 

I open my heart like you 
open your own. Still, 
I would rather not put thought 
into how I remember hidden lakes. 

We were sleeping when the fog 
swallowed the woods behind our house. 
Now that we are awake, it is as if 

nothing at all happened. 

Nathan Spoon

Nathan Spoon is an autistic poet with learning disabilities whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry, Poetry Daily, and swamp pink. He is the author of The Importance of Being Feeble-Minded (Propel Disability Poetry Series, 2023). He is the editor of Queerly and an ally of timemedicine.org.



Previous

On Reclamation, Mythopoetics, and Excavating Our Collective Eco-Memory
Next

Reading the Book of Nature