this poem is haunted

we spend most of our lives this way, governed
by the rules of avoidance, narrowly scraping past
unavoidable pains, folding up the quilts
we can't sleep under any more, listening
for the rattling of chains, waiting for the things we break
to come back to us‹the underwater sounds
of those we have drowned, whose faces
it might have been better to never have loved.

This poem was featured on The Writer's Alamanac by Garrison Keillor, to hear Keillor read the poem CLICK HERE.