Poetry: “Periodic,” by Rebecca Myers

His final breaths
served as a reminder
that dying had been kept
from me all these years: Yes,
I wept, but more
because of the ecstatic
unbraiding that accompanied
the irregular pattern
of rapid gasps and
apnea — to witness
this interstice as flesh
shut down was sad
but extraordinary, to exist
between halt and
resumption meant
I could never go back to being
the daughter who only hours earlier
had found the vibrant green
underneath the oxidized
pesto unremarkable.

Alicia Rebecca Myers is a poet who holds an MFA from NYU. Her work has recently appeared in publications that include Best New Poets, River Styx, Rattle, and Sixth Finch. Her first full-length book, Warble, was chosen by former Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg as winner of the 2024 Birdy Poetry Prize (Meadowlark Press) and was published in January 2025.