Second Wind

I think this is my second wind,
my sister said. Very
like the first, but that
ended, I remember. Oh
what a wind it was, so powerful
the leaves fell off the trees.
I don’t think so,
I said. Well, they were
on the ground, my sister said. Remember
running around the park in Cedarhurst,
jumping on the piles, destroying them?
You never jumped, my mother said.
You were good girls; you stayed where I put you.
Not in our heads,
my sister said. I put
my arms around her. What
a brave sister you are,
I said.

—Louise Glück

Louise Glück, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2020 as well as many other prizes for her numerous books of poetry, died on October 13, 2023.