At the end of my suffering there was a door

after The Wild Iris

There was Louise Glück telling me dirt
is soft and can be pushed through, there
was a window—a way of looking out.
Outside, snow lay over the lake
like ash; it covered the ground,
froze it over, and over and over 
I read the poem where the iris 
pops its head out from the dark,
looks about at the shifting pines, 
and tells them, That which you call death 
I remember.
I remember the life before
this one. Like a seed slipped into soil
remembers its wholeness, remembers
the hands that held it, dropped it down.

When the sun dropped down, I left.
Left to walk by the lake, left the door 
unlocked. I am always forgetting
my keys, always losing track of them. 
It is not just the way out but the way back in, 
when you fail to find the end, so many doors 
before the door, so many woods 
to get lost in, wander back from. 
In the midst of my suffering,
there was glass and words and white.
The stark black of a winter tree.
Objects that cut through to reach suffering
in suffering. I walked back.
I dreamt you came with a vase
of wild irises—flowers plucked out
from another time.

This article appears in July/August 2026.