Photo by Jens Mahnke

Instructions for How to Start Over

i.

It’s not necessary
to destroy everything.
Everyone thinks that fire
is cleansing, but fragments
of bone are left behind;
ashes cling to your face
with static electricity. Still,
they don’t disguise you.
New life begins from excrement,
the remains of what you consumed.

ii.

Nor is it necessary
to know where you’re going.
You simply begin. Hear the slam
of the wooden screen door
as you walk down the porch
steps, get into the rusty Eldorado,
crank the engine; it mourns
until it turns over. All you see
in the rearview mirror
is red dust filling the road.

iii.

No need to pack a suitcase –
all you need can be found
along the way: gas for the car
for moving, kerosene
for the Coleman lantern for
when you stop. Either liquid
can cause a conflagration,
but you’ve learned to mix
sand with the embers until
they die beneath your feet.

About This Poem:

• I couldn’t attend the Dodge Poetry Festival this year, so I’ve been working my way through the recorded sessions. This week, I listened to a craft talk by Yusef Komunyakaa.
• I have long thought that readers are necessary for the creation of written work. Reading and listening are on the receptive side of creativity. Together, a reader and a writer create a space within which a piece of writing can exist. Written work needs to be both given and received.
• Komunyakaa takes this concept even further. “The listener or the reader is co-creator of meaning,” he says. ‘The poet is not prime mover or director of meaning, the listener or reader is, more than the poet. So, we have to be humble in that sense.”
• I’m grateful to my readers for the co-creation of my poems, and I’m humbled by them, too.
• Like “Persephone” and “Supplicant,” this is a Stephen Dunn-influenced poem.
• It first appeared in the Fall 2022 issue of Peregrine Journal.