The Hurting Kind: Poems

by Ada Limon

it was not easy but I was loved each place. And so I have two brains now. Two entirely different brains. The one that always misses where I’m not, and the one that is so relieved to finally be home.

I want to honor a man who wants to hold a wild thing, only for a second, long enough to admire it fully, and then wants to watch it safely return to its life, bends to be sure the grass closes up behind it.

But haven’t we learned by now that just because something is bound to break doesn’t mean we shouldn’t shiver when it breaks?