Today's poem is by Erin Wilson

Small Potatoes
       

You know how you worried over every aspect of every thing,
and you tried to ward things off from the edge, keep things
from advancing too far, too close to the terminus? Then the dog died,
the fuel ran out, the baby got sick, the poison got drunk.
There are now only a few of you left to gather around the fire.
Yet that's what you pass around with your stories and your love,
small potatoes.

Copyright © 2025 Erin Wilson All rights reserved
from The Manhattan Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission