Turned Away
Michael T. Young

What happens when the last-arriving relative
regrets having come to the party? It’s not
eviction exactly or even a departure. There’s
a growing into the space. I know, I’ve been there:
the one who doesn’t belong—every thought
a party-crasher others want bounced from the scene.

But I settle in a corner, a rock in a grotto by the sea,
its watery skirts inching up. Gulls and terns
gawk overhead in the darkening skies. Storm clouds
swarm like hornets defending their nest. But
I sit with them, with the gawking birds, with
the hornets, with all those threats and stingers,
buzzing in their confusion. I let them rage,
burning themselves into a calm, settling again
into their places, while I still myself and listen
to the song that can only be heard
when we sit quietly among the dangers.

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Michael T. Young’s Comments

For one reason or another I feel out of place in most settings. This poem blossomed as it tumbled and turned through considerations of what happens in me when I sit in large groups, especially in party settings. The emotional weight of them is perhaps greater than the actual substance of the event, but that is really what poetry measures.

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