Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
Perennial
I was tired of wanting,
tired of morning,
tired of the way the ocean waits
for the sun to set.
I was tired of thawing,
tired of spring.
Tired of hoping
bulbs would rise.
And when they did,
I was tired of the longing
sexual smell of the earth,
so expectedly ugly
and eager
that there was nothing
left to want.
Bruce Willard’s poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Harvard Review, AGNI, Cortland Review, Ploughshares, Salamander and 5 A.M. as well as on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac. He has two collections of poems, Holding Ground (2013) and Violent Blues (2016); both published by Four Way Books. His third collection, Bond, is forthcoming. More information is available at www.brucewillard.com. (updated 10/2018)