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The Fourth River

A Journal of Nature and Place-based Writing Published by the Chatham University MFA Program
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Photo by Mary Beth Ely

Rainstorm After a Layoff

December 4, 2024

by Meghan Sterling

 

Joy is always possible, the dark lines

of the clouds in a woven wire above

the house, the street thrumming with 

last night’s storm blue as smoke. I had

thought I would shatter like a fistful

of rose petals, that the rain would undo

me. I had thought that I needed the world’s

approval to matter. But the world is growing 

small as a thimble. The world is threaded 

with silver memory. My daughter swallows 

the stars. My lover breathes in the dark. Why 

did it take me so long to discover what’s true?

Joy in the puddles. Joy in the eaves. Moonlight, 

midnight, joy at the house’s black throat.

 

Meghan Sterling (she/her/hers) lives in Maine. Her collections are These Few Seeds (Terrapin Books), Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora (Harbor Editions), Comfort the Mourners (Everybody Press) and View from a Borrowed Field (Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Book Prize). You Are Here to Break Apart (Lily Poetry Review Press), is forthcoming in 2025.

Tags Meghan Sterling
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