Poem to the Future
Future, if you stop by, I promise to open the door.
I know sometimes you arrive in combat boots,
laces braided with bombs and drones, even the way
you cuff your jeans feels like a subtle threat. Future,
if you come inside, I’ll offer you jasmine tea, but know
I have champagne chilling in the fridge as I keep hoping
we’ll get to celebrate you. And my neighbor will come by
with tortilla soup. She makes a hell of a martini. Maybe
we’ll get you a little tipsy so you can calm the fuck down.
Wait, sorry—that’s my anxiety, Future, you don’t even exist
yet, like one of those midnight panics that wakes me when
I’m certain the world has ended (has it ended?) Future,
I promise to treat you well. I’ll show you the faith I had
last fall when I planted daffodils, those van Gogh tulips
I ordered in a frenzy of hope. Future, I believe in spring.
I believe in you too. Come in—but take your shoes off,
leave the dirty parts in the mudroom. I keep telling
everyone you’re coming. Don’t make me a liar.
Sit with me. Show me how we survived this.
*
Kelli Russell Agodon’s most recent book is Accidental Devotions (Copper Canyon Press, 2026). She is the author of five poetry collections. Her work has received numerous honors, including the Dorothy Rosenberg Poetry Prize, a Poetry Society of America Prize, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in Poetry, and three Washington State Book Award finalist selections. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press, teaches in Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program, and cohosts the poetry series Poems You Need with Melissa Studdard. She lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State. www.agodon.com
I think of the inherent hope shown every spring when we plant our gardens.
I think I might start chilling champagne in my fridge, too, as a way to honor and believe in what is to come