What you worked hard for, you know
you’ve earned. First author, clear byline.
Your name spelled correctly— how hard
could it be? It seems more than a lifetime,
this work of standing up for your due.
And yet you haven’t lost excitement for
things you still hope to do. Teach and write,
make books, read books, exchange ideas to find
elusive delight; discover how lives shaped
in heaviness and endurance might breathe.
Shed scales close as armor, feel the blade joy
can touch to your chest where it finds a place of
softness. Remember sweetness after years
of strain, how skies widen from light to light.
*
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
