after Cynthia Huntington 

For a decade, I refused to say it.  

I said: episode. I said: depressed. Said: setback. 

Incident. Rough patch. Anything other than 

be specific—because, if I refused to say 

those five syllables, my mother’s illness 

could not exist. Because to say it 

meant my mother’s days would be measured: 

good or bad. Lucid. Delusional. It meant 

a tally of hours to manage. It meant 

the mirror of my future & my children 

’s future: a wager we’d carry 

in our blood. It meant medications  

& mental institutes & relapses. It meant  

on going. Going on, without end—

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Erika Goodrich’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Mid-American Review, Nashville Review, Permafrost, Quarterly West, Meridian, and Grist, among others. She was nominated for 2020 Best New Poets and currently lives in North Carolina.