I go because I’ve seen the ants
moving particles of brick
up vertical slopes
through tiny forests of ferns
and I guess I hope
as I sit and contemplate bayou browns
and egrets alighting
that they can carry me away too
or at least the fortress walls
I’ve built to defend what’s
trapped inside
this redoubt
encased in thick air
under impossible live limbs
doubting the doubt
knowing seeds crack
our walls even now
to rejoice
in waters to come
knowing with certainty
I can carry fifty times
the weight
of this ruin
—
Brad Vogel is the author of the poetry collections Find Me in the Feral Pockets (featured in The New Yorker in spring 2024) and Broad Meadow Bird. His writing has appeared in The New York Times and various poetry publications. He founded NYC Poets Afloat, a residency and reading series aboard ships. He lives and canoes in Gowanus, Brooklyn, which reminds him of his one-time home in post-Katrina New Orleans.
