National Poetry Month: 30 New Poems--17 of 30

A good poem, to me, says things that you're feeling in ways you never could have said them yourself. It seems you can always count on poetry to do that. You can always find a poem to connect with. And then you're kind of bound to that poem--it is yours for life.

Loss is a common poetry theme. And for good reason. The experience of loss creates such a complicated set of emotions. And it's an experience that is different for every individual person, and different for every individual loss. But somehow you can always count on some poem out there to capture it for you. To speak the loss back to you and, hopefully, give you comfort.

Here's a poem I discovered at Ted Kooser's site, An American Life in Poetry:

"The Thrift Shop Dresses"
by Franny Lindsay

I slid the white louvers shut so I could stand in your closet

a little while among the throng of flowered dresses

you hadn’t worn in years, and touch the creases

on each of their sleeves that smelled of forgiveness

and even though you would still be alive a few more days

I knew they were ready to let themselves be

packed into liquor store boxes simply

because you had asked that of them

Read the rest of the poem at An American Life in Poetry. And please continue to enjoy this series of new (to me) poems for the remainder of April.