Limitless: Through My Window
This Morning, The Squirrels and Birds Can Wait, oh, a cat’s tail holds low to the ground through the yard, and then a god, with a masked face hauls its stout body over the wooden fence, a gold-dog sniffs the grass and squats—clap clap my hands when she tries to make her mark, turn and ignored, and bored,
After sundown I wake with Venti coffee
for the fat rat comes out
you and I talk for hours, you in your tiny home in the desert, me in the green grass
Once, I lay back on my fourth of July camp chair and believed leaves were dancing for me, its branches lifting up and down, pirouetting. Once the crows followed me up to the bus stop, and so I dressed in black like them, with black sunglasses,
a thieves’ goat climbed to the top of my cherry tree and blew its own horn, shaking my bones. Wake up! Wake up!
Twice, mother knocked on my window twice when I was sleeping.
I sleep when I can’t rest. Limitless
Real cherries grow on my tree touching the earth like Michelangelo’s fingers.
Cows love the grass as the grass loves the cows.
I wish I were a lamb licked clean. A baby elephant with tufted hair scooped up by mama’s trunk swung around in a lullaby.
But I Do Not Need Madness
I have known madness in my bones,
at dinner tables, pot roast, and mashed potatoes.
Small-talking strangers in dim-lit diners drinking cups
of coffee, spreading butter and jam on toast.
I have seen madness in the eerie calm of streets,
around dark corners, anonymous store shutters,
in hospital beds, isolation rooms, old age homes,
where unhinged men fist fight over Bingo.
I’ve known madness in Shelley, Shuman, Zelda, and Poe,
thieves roaming the streets,
rabid dogs sniffing sour milk jars
in garbage bins clawing through cans of beans.
I have seen madness in kindness, open-handed crumbs,
curved fingers beckoning kisses, mushy as an overripe peach.
I have known promises of marriage, brides and grooms,
driving off in Ford Fiestas, bodies and hoods
decorated with candied dots, Just Married!
toward a desert moon,
howling coyotes, pine and sage, over jagged mountains,
passing roadsides of crosses and corsages,
a sunset so breathtaking, the bride rests her head
on the groom’s lap and weeps.
(But I Do Not Need Madness is from the forthcoming anthology Waking in the Blue: Poetry and Essays about Mental Health, The Poetry Box, 2026)
Bio: Sherri Levine
How do I know who I am when I wake up, am I crying, and washing the toilet, am I scratching an itch I can’t seem to get to? Poets tell me I am kind. I am a great friend. Poets tell me I am loved. My father, at 89, says he is proud of me. I believe I am a survivor. Survivor of the mental health system. Committed to hospitals in US and abroad for years, months, too long, where I learned to smoke, and learned to help people in need. I learned to write poetry, even though it was bad. I learned that people believed in me, and they shipped off to college where I had to hide my illness, where it was shameful. My mother who grew up in an orphanage and painted beautiful flowers. My writing goes dark. I don’t care anymore what people think of me and my bipolar disorder. I write about books about it. I travel to conferences and talk about it. My main purpose in life is to help people express themselves in groups to write in a supportive nonjudgemental manner, as groups helped me after I was frozen, over medicated for ten years. When I became unfrozen, I could be a part of society. I want to be surrounded by people who are kind and who love. Please visit me at sherrilevine.com.
"How do I know who I am when I wake up, am I crying, and washing the toilet, am I scratching an itch I can’t seem to get to?...My father, at 89, says he is proud of me. I believe I am a survivor. Survivor of the mental health system. Committed to hospitals in US and abroad for years, months, too long, where I learned to smoke, and learned to help people in need. I learned to write poetry, even though it was bad. I learned that people believed in me...My mother who grew up in an orphanage and painted beautiful flowers.