In Retrospect,                                            by Devon Balwit

the mistake was to trust

machines, their makers,

my will, to be stronger

than sly algorithms,

the dopamine rush of

the ever-larger number.

The mistake was to offer up

one part after another in

a peep-show to strangers,

assuming one would fall

in love, my very own

happily ever after.

The mistake was not to leave

once I knew, but what

a profusion of flowers after

the fat lip, the cloy of lilies

over blood, the belonging

signaled by the blue bruise.

The mistake was to turn

my back on the children,

thinking them safe

in their rooms, the camera

slowly panning over

the slack-faced teddy bear.

The mistake was to absent myself

from seasons, from lungs

and rough hide, itch and chaff,

the pebble in the shoe,

the slow hours where nothing

yet everything happens.

* * * * *

Devon Balwit teaches in Portland, OR. She has six chapbooks and three collections out, among them: We are Procession, Seismograph (Nixes Mate Books), Risk Being/Complicated (A collaboration with Canadian artist Lorette C. Luzajic); Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders); and Motes at Play in the Halls of Light (Kelsay Books). Her individual poems can be found here as well as in The Cincinnati Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Fifth Wednesday, the Aeolian Harp Folio, Red Earth Review, Queen's College Quarterly, The Fourth River, The Free State Review, Red Paint Hill, and more.