Praise the ones who loved us best they could

By Deirdre O’Connor

---

the one who picked another wife, another life
on the other coast. The one who chose
the one nearby, the younger one, the one
who had a son. Praise them for toughening us,
for bracketing the time we shared, sticking it
in footnotes, in envelopes on which we wrote
their names, a birthday card their kid found
in a book on native plants, their name
inscribed above ours, love comma our name.
Their handwriting, we know it decades on,
can’t unrecognize it, the slope and paraph,
even the marginal squiggle in Keats
or Derrida will go to the grave with us.
It is wrought in the iron of our brains.
Praise our brains for keeping them out
of our hearts, for letting them go where they went.

---

---

Deirdre O’Connor is the author of two books of poems, most recently The Cupped Field, which received the 2018 Able Muse Book Award. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Bennington Review, On the Seawall, Rust + Moth, JAMA, Cave Wall, and other journals. She directs the Writing Center at Bucknell University.

---

• 11/7 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Vandana Khanna + local writer Nicole Callihan / The Gallery at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free

• Two workshops remain in our Workshop Series--SWWIM Lessons: From Prompt to Placement: “Navigating Your Manuscript with Alexandra Lytton Regalado – What I learned from reading for (and winning) the National Poetry Series” on 11/12 (register here) and “Surfing Submittable with Jen Karetnick – Keeping your head above water in the poetry submissions process” on 12/10 (register here). Price: $80/workshop. Time: 7:00–9:00 PM (EST). Where: Zoom.

• Note: SWWIM Every Day is now accepting poetry translations for publication consideration. Please see swwim.org/submit for the full guidelines.

• Are you a SWWIMmer with literary news to share (publication/feature/award/book/book review)? We’d love to shout out your accomplishments in our Weekly Spotlight! Please email swwimmiami@gmail.com with a link to your news. (No DMs on any social media platforms, please.)

• Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Bluesky for more updates—and visit our website to see past, present, and future readings & events.

---

**We do our best to preserve the integrity of each poem; however, due to programming limitations, some poems may read differently on a mobile phone and in certain browsers. For best viewing, use Chrome on a desktop/laptop.