April 22 was the 25th anniversary of Jane Kenyon’s death, and the following night several poets and I were scheduled to read from Graywolf’s The Best Poems of Jane Kenyon at Porter Square Books in Cambridge. Of course, the event was cancelled; I spent time reading her poems to myself instead. With a broadside of “Otherwise” framed in my downstairs bathroom, it’s the poem of hers I encounter most frequently. I began to compose this as a response to the cynical nihilism that created a federal government built to fail, and which, as planned, is failing us. That our current president is responsible for more American deaths than the Viet Cong, and that, as of today, 41.5% of the country approves of him, I find devastating. Still, Jane Kenyon’s “It might have been/otherwise” is as good a campaign slogan for Democrats as I can imagine.
OTHERWISE
After Jane Kenyon
I got out of bed
with a sore throat.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
nothing before
a sixteen hour
shift. It might
have been otherwise.
I had one mask,
one gown as I jogged
past orderlies, doing
the work I love.
At noon I collapsed
in the ER. It might
have been otherwise.
I rolled on a gurney
to a room with negative
pressure. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept, sedated, as
a ventilator pumped
and the president
lied, saying no
other day would be
like this day. But
everyone knows
it will be otherwise.