Naomi
She was first to show
me how I too had been
brought here unwillingly
and prompted by a solemn
promise to say thank you.
What did I learn? No one
had ever lived for the first
time in my hands before.
No one had appeared in
the world with my eyes
before or changed from
want to life because of
my life before. I had heard
one morning winter’s first
birdsong burst through
the clear white hush like
a pageant of bells, and
hurry on, like dying words
laid down before last rites—
but there, beside the table,
where our voices changed,
I learned the power of
this purity I knew before
only as hope, and saw,
finally, in her, that we
who fed war’s technology
were given daughters
as proof time still lends
its trembling hands
to us with forgiveness.
Travis Wright
Travis Wright is a graduate student in Charlotte, NC where he lives with his wife Emily and their two children. His work has appeared previously in the Brooklyn Quarterly, Anthropocene, and ARTOS, among others.
About this poem
The poem "Naomi" describes Travis's experience of holding his first child and hearing her voice and having nothing to compare its surreality with except war and forgiveness.