What I Might Do
I’ll visit the spot without wondering
about anything. I won’t ask
what could have been different,
what the witnesses
witnessed or didn’t. I’ll say gone
is just a way of talking about ourselves
still being here. I’ll hope this taste
passes swiftly from my mouth and I’ll refuse
requests to describe it. If anyone asks
I’ll say the day broke like
a day and breakfast was breakfast
and the knives and forks were solid as
knives and forks on a table.
I’ll decide that everything I do
counts as mourning. I’ll turn away
from the petals on the ground.
The poem “What I Might Do” got started in a workshop taught by Eduardo C. Corral at the Bear River Writers’ Conference. Eduardo invited us to experiment with negation – specifically, to write a poem that contradicts or disagrees with another poem of ours. This interested me right away because it seemed to me that the more common exercise might be to write a poem that disagrees with or talks back to someone else’s poem, but to talk back to one of one’s own poems is, maybe, a way to explore the many facets of an experience, the many things one feels or could feel. I like the idea of exploring this in separate poems that are then in some kind of conversation with one another, rather than trying to have any one poem try to cover all the angles.
Below is the original poem that “What I Might Do” is talking back to. I don’t find the original poem any less true or interesting for having been contradicted, and I’m interested to experiment with more of this kind of ongoing dialogue among poems.
Things I Wonder About Now
How gentle it’s possible to be
and still touch.
What counts as mourning.
If those petals on the ground
are reckless or brave.
How long this taste lingers, and could I
describe it to someone else if I had to.
What if I fall in some kind of love
with the puzzle pieces.
What if some days I think only
about the bones.
What it says about me that these are the things
I wonder about, that this is the spot I claim
in this place they call the aftermath.
What Inspires You
A short (not at all comprehensive) list of things that inspire me:
The Bear River Writers’ Conference in Northern Michigan
Carl Phillips’ book My Trade is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing, particularly his thoughts about how to keep challenging and surprising ourselves when we have been writing for a long time
Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift, looking at how art can exist within the “gift economy.”
David Bayles’ and Ted Orland’s book Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
Bio
Susannah Sheffer’s newest poetry collection, The Stone Tries to Understand the Hands, was published by Cornerstone Press in 2025. Her previous collections include Break and Enter (2021) and This Kind of Knowing (2013). She is also the author of the nonfiction book Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys. She lives in Western Massachusetts.
Find the Spring 2026 Issue HERE
Previous NPM 2026 poets
| April 1 | Amy Forstadt |
| April 2 | Annette Sisson |
| April 3 | Beth Kanell |
| April 4 | Bonnie Proudfoot |
| April 5 | Charles Stringer |
| April 6 | D. Dina Friedman |
| April 7 | David Colodney |
| April 8 | Deanna Ludwin |
| April 9 | Eileen Pettycrew |
| April 10 | Felice Alexandra |
| April 11 | Grace Massey |
| April 12 | Hallie Fogarty |
| April 13 | Isabel Cristina Legarda |
| April 14 | Jon Yungkans |
| April 15 | Kim Welliver |
| April 16 | Laura Foley |
| April 17 | Laurie Kuntz |
| April 18 | Marissa Glover |
| April 19 | Michelle McMillan-Holifield |
| April 20 | Miriam Sagan |
| April 21 | Roy Mason |
| April 22 | Sarah Banks |
| April 23 | Sean Whalen |
| April 24 | Shutta Crum |
| April 25 | Simona Carini |
| April 26 | Sunny Hemphill |
| April 27 | Susannah Sheffer |