Give Me This

I thought it was the neighbor’s cat back
to clean the clock of the fledgling robins low
in their nest stuck in the dense hedge by the house
but what came was much stranger, a liquidity
moving all muscle and bristle. A groundhog
slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes still
green in the morning’s shade. I watched her
munch and stand on her haunches taking such
pleasure in the watery bites. Why am I not allowed
delight? A stranger writes to request my thoughts
on suffering. Barbed wire pulled out of the mouth,
as if demanding that I kneel to the trap of coiled
spikes used in warfare and fencing. Instead,
I watch the groundhog closer and a sound escapes
me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine
when I woke. She is a funny creature and earnest,
and she is doing what she can to survive.

Copyright © 2020 by Ada Limón. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 16, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“This poem was an attempt at a minor rebellion. There is so much grief and agony and tumult that surrounds us and yet we must live too. I found myself watching the groundhog steal my tomatoes and I was almost envious. She looked so safe and satisfied. I want to be that groundhog; I want to be allowed pleasure again.”
— Ada Limón

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“For him, you imagine, it is more like breath than wonder” 

—“from Citizen, VI [On the train the woman standing]” by Claudia Rankine