Releasing the Tears Again

By Eloise Klein Healy

Here’s the worst thing I’ve learned. 
My brain ripped alongside my aphasia
and, thereafter, nothing “remembered” my language.

I have a different brain now,
but all told, I’m just “new” again.
I’m close to what I write and read.
What I see is clearing the path
to my workroom door.

Emptiness of the space dissolves
as I open it, but that room lifts me,
knowing again for more years
than I could count.

When I was thirty-seven
and bigger than my blessing,
I fell on my knees
spilling moonlight through the window.

I fell on my knees and promised
that poetry would be everything,
the basis of all choices, and here it is again.

Eloise Klein Healy, the author of nine books of poetry, was named the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2012. She was the founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Her forthcoming book, A Brilliant Loss, will be published in 2022.