We were young when we met. We loved to dance. I’d go as far as to say that dancing was a key to our falling in love. Without it, would we have? Later, we would not dance as much, and then eventually we did not dance at all. For a long time after our split, it was really hard for me to remember the good times we had, those happy, early moments when love felt easy and smooth.

I wrote this poem as a way of looking at that story in my life, but from the perspective of going backwards chronologically. I start with a very early moment and then immediately go to the end of everything, and then to just before the end, and then a little before that, and before that, all the way back to the beginning again, like a trail of crumbs that shows you how you got from here to there. Recently, in my memoir/personal essay workshop, I asked my students to write a similar type piece: to take an important moment and then go backwards in time to another moment prior to that, and before that, but in essay form, not in poem form. Sometimes seeing your own story from this perspective helps you see it differently than you had before.

Here’s my story, in poem form:

This poem is from my debut poetry collection, Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning, winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. If you’d like to purchase the book, you can buy it directly from my publisher, Mercer University Press (use the discount code “Facebook” or “MUPNEWS” at checkout for 20% off, plus free shipping if you choose media mail). You can also get a copy from all the major retailers. This poem is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without written permission of the author (me).

Remember not all poems have to be true. Most of the details are in this one, but I have tweaked some. The essence of it is definitely true. Apologies to my ex (sorry! sorry!) for having to appear in my work now and again. Oopsy.

You can listen to Robert McCready reciting the poem on his Evening Magic YouTube Channel here.

This concludes my National Poetry Month celebration for 2021. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and thanks for going along this ride with me. For my longtime subscribers, an especially big thank you for letting me indulge in poetry every April.

During the month of April, which is National Poetry Month, I have been sharing poems I love from contemporary writers. I hope I piqued your interest in poetry, if it needed to be piqued, and to show you that a really great poem can be accessible to all. If you missed the other poems, you can find them here and here and here and here and here. Thank you to the wonderful poets who allowed me to share their work.

Photo credit (of two people): Casey Horner

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