National Poetry Month: THE SHAPE OF IT by Wendy Xu

I wake up and inherit the world

as anybody has left it.

Perhaps later, some windowless thinking.

A red goat stares at me

from the kitchen table, his confident

black eyes moving

in slow passes across my face.

It goes on like this.

I greet my strangeness and crawl

inside it like a sleeping bag.

Now I will solve my problems.

Now I will emerge in the shape of my destiny.

The road down into one’s “Inner Life”

is paved with ecstatic visions

and people whose phone numbers

you have deleted.

Some days my sadness boils over.

I lay on the hardwood floor

and do a breathing exercise

to help my bellybutton

meet my spine.

The first element of relaxation

is giving up.

Then comes the really beautiful part.

This poem is from issue 40.1. You may purchase a copy here.