I want to learn myself
not as bird’s eye flight and curved
horizon, not traced wide across a timeline,
the contours of my story rifled through
for filigreed and shining things. I want
to wait out gravity without guide—
no convenient sheer cliff note
of description, no map unfolded,
marked with place names and dead ends.
I want to find an undersight
below the loam of me, in stone root or
in stalagmite, in slow accumulation.
I have come too far from sunlight
to be sweltered by a blazing sky. Let me come
into dimness, listening. Let me learn myself
as a sightless fish learns water.
–
Alison Hurwitz is a former cellist/dancer who finds music in language. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, Alison hosts the monthly online reading, Well-Versed Words. Published in South Dakota Review, Sky Island Journal, SWWIM and others, her work was named as a finalist for RockPaperPoem’s 2025 Poetry Prize. When not writing, Alison officiates weddings and memorials, hikes, and dances in her kitchen with her family. Find her at alisonhurwitz.com
© 2025, Alison Hurwitz
Halfway Down the Stairs 