By Ann Hudson

is what I do on my most

difficult nights, the lamp

clicked off, the book bookmarked

and set beneath the reading glasses,

pills, and glass. I just don’t want

to let anyone down. What if

there’s some warning sign, some

important pain I should act on?

What if I mess it up? I cleaned out

the pantry shelves today,

emptying down the disposal

the pickled beets, the pears,

the raspberry jam I canned myself

but never had the faith to eat.

Ann Hudson is the author of The Armillary Sphere (Ohio University Press) and Glow (Next Page
Press), a chapbook on radium. Her poems have appeared in Cider Press Review, Orion, Crab
Orchard Review, Colorado Review, North American Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, SWWIM,
and elsewhere. She is a senior editor for RHINO, and teaches at a Montessori school in
Evanston, Illinois.