Sorrow Is Not My Name by Ross Gay

Sorrow Is Not My Name

by Ross Gay

—after Gwendolyn Brooks

(published in his 2011 book, Bringing the Shovel Down, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press)

No matter the pull toward brink. No

matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.

There is a time for everything. Look,

just this morning a vulture

nodded his red, grizzled head at me,

and I looked at him, admiring

the sickle of his beak.

Then the wind kicked up, and,

after arranging that good suit of feathers

he up and took off.

Ju...