Orange tabby in the foxglove.
Four beets in a bag.
The poppy’s blocky skeleton.
A net full of mulberries,
            sweetest
                        at the point
                        they let go.

Untie
the soft knots
of the crochet.
Begin again.
Look,
there’s a lily.
Look,
there’s another one.

Copyright © 2023 by Susan Landers. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 12, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“I wrote this poem about nine months after I stopped drinking alcohol, reveling in the clarity that doing so provides. In a place like the United States, where alcohol is ubiquitous, not drinking is often characterized as some kind of sacrifice, but in reality, it’s the opposite. Sobriety is a gift. It creates space for all the pleasures that come from attending to oneself and the world.”
—Susan Landers