The Enemy
My youth was so full of rage
that only the most brilliant of suns
could puncture it. Thunder and rain
ravaged me until my garden filled
with venom. But now my mind
has come to the autumn of its ideas
and one must rearrange this earth
with a shovel and rake. Flowers
are holes as big as graves. What are
these new futures I dream of?
Futures that burst from a soil
of grief. What mystical alignment
gives them such vigor?
Oh, sweet things! Time is a strange
enemy that gnaws at my heart.
It is blood and blood
alone that fortifies it.
Sandra Simonds is the author of eight books books of poetry, most recently : Triptychs (forthcoming Wave Books, November 2022), Atopia (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), Orlando, (Wave Books, 2018), and Further Problems with Pleasure, winner of the 2015 Akron Poetry Prize, 2009). Her poems and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Best American Poetry, Poetry, and elsewhere. She is an Associate professor of English and Humanities at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia. Find out more about Sandra here.
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) was a French poet, essayist, art critic, and translator of Edgar Allan Poe.
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Author: The Best American Poetry
