I apologize, but I do not apologize
for everywhere, sometimes inherent in futures later,
a natural weightedness, thick with--
Likewise, the scar called destination is always already here.

I am held up by this, as if the world, extrinsic,
were methodically the wrong fountain, the one where
the water is stagnant, the drainage blocked
by nature's things: leaves, moss, dirt the wind put there.

And like the Greek who could see what the world saw
but could not hold its vision in destiny, I understand
and the agility to understand makes no difference:
there is this about me, it feels bad

but if grief needs to be it is in the end, anyway.

--Claudia Rankine