Poem by Maggie Smith
April 27, 2023
I call them back to me —
flimsy selves of the past,
some vellum-thin, clearly
unfinished. Not fleshed out,
not fully — only children
really, stopped in time, still
tottering about in their
mother’s high heels,
meaning mine?
I didn’t know them,
their little plots forgotten
just as they began
to rise. I didn’t know
what any of them,
any of us, would become
in the end, which is not yet
where we are.
I call them back.
I’m ready, I tell them.
I think I know now
where we’re going, all of us,
together. I think I know
where the story is going.
Come back, come back,
I can finish it.
Maggie Smith is the author of several books, including Good Bones and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving. Her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, will be published by One Signal/Atria in April 2023. Smith’s poems and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, the Guardian, the Paris Review, the Washington Post, and The Best American Poetry.
Photo by Devon Albeit
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