Lifecycle

I keep relearning what it means to be
human, collapse the myth we are
always to live as happy or sad or grief

ridden, that it’s okay to break camp,
extinguish the embers from last night’s fire,
return home to rediscover our own grove,

native black oak and magnolia, nurture
new and flexible veins, branches, beliefs,
wait for winter when, together, we turn

more accepting, allow them to seep back
into root and trunk and stem, hold them
close enough for shelter, regrow once more

our lives. Our very own forest.

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Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, a Gen X poet with disabilities, has a publishing history that began in the early 1990s. Her earlier poetry appeared in Yankee magazine, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Frogpond and dozens of others throughout the decades. Some of her more recent work has appeared in BigCityLit, The Southern Quill, and Miracle Monocle’s anthology You Blew It. Her chapbook of micropoems, We All Might be Witches (MacKenzie Publishing 2023), was inspired by Gotthardt’s neurodivergent son. The book was nominated for a Library of Virginia Literary Award. Gotthardt is the author of 11 other books and has won several national and Virginia regional awards. Learn more at KatherineGotthardt.com.