Love Poem as Ars Poetica

Erica McAlpine

Because I am the dog who thought
her pain was a location, shuffling in
and out of rooms, trying to escape it,
it forever following along,

you stick with me everywhere — not
you, but the idea. We begin
with something big, water, or the wind, thinking we can shape it
before it all goes wrong.

Erica McAlpine is a poet and an Associate Professor of English at Oxford. Her collection of poems, The Country Gambler, was published in 2016.
Originally published:
July 1, 2013

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