Annie Przypyszny

Walking the Meditation Labyrinth in the Dog Park Near My Apartment

I was right: birds
can fly, and fish
can swim,
away. 

I was wrong
about my own
linearity.
I see that now.

But I was right
that my name
is spelled
how it’s spelled
and that number
plus number
equals number
every time.

I was wrong
to believe
in the myth
of swift, spotless
healing,

right to believe
that the moon’s
many faces
said something
different
from the sun’s
set mouth,
something
that would shatter me
to probe.

I was wrong
when I told myself
I’d never write
a poem that ends
in violence.

I go nowhere
if I don’t unsheathe
this long, rusted wound.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Annie Przypyszny is a poet from Washington, DC pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Maryland. She is an intern at the DC Writers Room and has poems published or forthcoming in Bear Review, The Emerson Review, Sugar House Review, Tampa Review, Atticus Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Main Street Rag, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Champagne Room, The MacGuffin, Cider Press Review and others.