Current
Issue
Volume 12.2
Emily Adams-Aucoin
—
DARKNESS ERODES THE FOURTH WALL
Tragically, it’s true that joy gets old fast
when it’s just joy,
only & uninterrupted.
But no one wishes for sadness.
To do so would be monstrous, unforgivable—
even here in this poem, I’ll stop
just short of praising it.
Still, the night revises in my body.
Even in my happiness
I’m a tourist, borrowing the heat
& depth from grief.
At least half of what I write about my life
reflects my lived experience,
though I’m never sure which half.
My father did become translucent.
My daughter does possess
a very specific kind of light.
My marriage, really, is both an engine
of measurement & a cathedral.
The metaphor is the map,
which exists as God might;
indecipherable from everything.
The science of it matters, but doesn’t
touch the meaning.
The veil doesn’t lift, but sometimes,
we hear it sing.
Emily Adams-Aucoin is a writer whose poetry has been published in magazines such as Electric Literature, Frontier Poetry, TriQuarterly, Sixth Finch, North American Review, and Colorado Review. Her micro-chapbook It Adheres to Many Things won Harbor Review’s 2025 Editor’s Prize. She’s a poetry editor for Kitchen Table Quarterly, and you can find her on social media @emilyapoetry.
