I wish I were like Johnny Cash
& thought my heart was mine.
I've worn a black suit
my entire life. It suits the war
my eyes ignite.

My sins sit on my lap,
bald, blind, desperate
for the mercy of lost roads,
glottal white lines.

Only smoke will take me
far to nowhere-

a woman living
between
her own burning road

& a charmed God-

the unmarked sky
where a plague of blackbirds

fell across my back
like an unlit cross.

About this poem
"Is your heart yours and how do you recognize, inhabit and expand it? Over years of listening to Johnny Cash, I heard a new question in 'I Walk the Line' and thought about his voice and lyrics in the way that a poet or poem will find you (again) at the darkest, most honest part of your life. I also wanted to bridge and invert the visual, psychological imagery of Cash's identity as a 'man in black' for myself. I've discovered so much light, grief and God in my skin."
-Rachel Eliza Griffiths

About Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is the author of "Lighting the Shadow" (Four Way Books, 2015). She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate