I have entered a cloud
& I am sore afraid;

I am standing
alone & the light

is dazzling bright.
There was a moment

when I knew the steps
I was taking would lead

where I needed
to go so I took them,

I did it,
I took those steps

& I was awake
in my own life & you

do not understand
it is not you it is me,

me wanting, me needing
something outside

to anchor this regret to.

__

Abandoning his typical exuberant & garrulous aesthetic in favor of a poem that is "stripped down" in terms of both its acoustics & its exclamatory vision of the world, Nate Pritts has written a slimmed down poem anxious for an albatross.