is caring something we can choose to do
more of? setting aside what seems to be
the literal no is there a pathway to follow?
steadily the dependable accumulate those
who value constant things who come together
like proper clasps | maybe being around
someone who can’t attach well makes us
ill and not just vaguely but sick in the
bones of our bones like metal lodged
in heart chambers indifferent to rhythm’s skit-
tering | sometimes a door you want closed
is badgered by a breathing house flexed
and rattled so the boundary itself becomes
a nuisance maybe being with me is like that
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Nathaniel Calhoun works to protect and restore biodiversity around the Amazon basin and in his home country, Aotearoa New Zealand. His poems have featured or will soon feature in Oxford Poetry, Lana Turner, Puerto del Sol, New York Quarterly and many others. He reads for Only Poems and sometimes tweets @calhounpoems
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image: Aaron Burch
Rejection Letters 