ACROSTIC IN WHICH I CONTINUE TO SAY GOODBYE
Denise Duhamel | Poetry
Maybe you are with my mother, or yours,
Able to look down at the round
Umbrellas lined up on Hollywood Beach
Remembering the drum circle, the way the full moon
Embroidered the ocean. Is it day or
Evening where you are? Do you care anymore to
Negotiate time, its nonlinear
Sequencing like a collage? Here on
Earth it’s even more dire than when you left us in
August, when I engraved your name in the sand. A new war
Turns us terrible. It’s the last day of the year
Over here, 12/31/23. Kelsey tells me it’s 1-2-3-1-2-3.
New Year’s Eve, the ocean washing away your name.
Denise Duhamel’s most recent books of poetry are Pink Lady (Pitt Poetry Series, 2025), Second Story (Pittsburgh, 2021) and Scald (2017). Blowout (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In Which (2024) is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.