Matthew Nienow
They Once Looked to Me
to know the world.
I gave them words
as tenderly as I could
in my boozy breath
a bottle always in my hand—
They wanted to be near,
to build alongside me,
back when I still
believed anything
was possible, before I tried
my hand at making a house,
only to see it crumble
under daily use. My sons,
they used to see me
as something fully formed
even in the days when
I would only wake to pack
a bowl & toke. Once,
they looked to me
to know how to feel
about the world. If
only I could erase
the memory of their eyes
when they finally understood.
Matthew Nienow reads “They Once Looked to Me”
Matthew Nienow is the author of House of Water (2016) and If Nothing (forthcoming in 2025), both from Alice James Books. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Missouri Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry, and has been recognized with fellowships from the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington with his wife and two sons, where he works as a mental health counselor.