Welcome to Poetically Yours. This segment showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. This week’s featured poet is Shuly Xóchitl Cawood.
Cawood teaches writing workshops, doodles with markers and metallic paint, and is raising six orchids. Her books include Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning (Mercer University Press, 2021), winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry, and Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough (Press 53, 2023). Learn more at shulycawood.com. Here’s her poem “Vow.”
I would follow you anywhere: to Madrid or Los Angeles
or the forever after. Those places are easy. I would follow you
to the moon where what passes for pavement is pocked and there are no
Targets or Fresh Markets to pick up a sandwich or candy bar.
I would follow you to the ends of Alabama, and what I mean
is the coast of any crusted land where we have never been.
I would follow you to hot and dry countries, places where
I did not have the language for what we wanted even though
we would still need so much. I would follow you into the rush
of any cold and ask if we could buy an igloo, and even if you refused
I would huddle with you on ice. It’d be nice if you could
build me a fire, but I would be sold on the idea of just getting closer.
I would follow you through hurricanes and hailstorms
and we could hold metal trash can lids over our heads
so we don’t get really bad bruises. I would cling to a fencepost
with you, huddle in a basement, I would follow you through
all of love’s disasters and we would survive on Coca-Colas
and cans of black beans and prayers, which are edible if cooked
correctly. I would let us dig a passage through to the other
side, and by that I mean heaven or hell, whatever we find.
