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Crossroads - Griffin Poetry Prize

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My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar, like what I remember of love when I was young— love that was so often foolish in its objectives but never in its choices, its intensities. Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised— My soul has been so fearful, so violent: forgive its brutality. As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously, not wishing to give offense but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance: it is not the earth I will miss, it is you I will miss. Copyright © 2009 by Louise Glück, A Village Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) LOUISE GLÜCK © 2022 The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar, like what I remember of love when I was young— love that was so often foolish in its objectives but never in its choices, its intensities. Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised— My soul has been so fearful, so violent: forgive its brutality. As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously, not wishing to give offense but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance: it is not the earth I will miss, it is you I wil

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