Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, August 4th, 2025.

Today's poem is by Terrence Hayes, and it's called The Same City. And there's plenty that I could say about the poem, about its double

structure, with its restatements, reimagining's intensifications, the way the diction changes

between the two halves. But this is a poem that very much strikes and speaks for itself. And so all I'll really say is

that this poem almost always very nearly moves me to tears. Here is the same city. For James L. Hayes.

The rain falling on a night in mid-December. I pulled to my father's engine,

wondering how long I'll remember this. His car is dead. He connects jumper cables to his battery,

then to mine without looking in at me and the child. Water beads on the windshields, the road sign, his thin

blue coat. I'd get out now, prove I can stand with him in the cold, but he told me to stay with

the infant. I wrap her in the blanket, staring for what seems like a long time into her open,

toothless mouth, and wish she was mine.

I feed her in orange, softened first in my mouth, chewed gently until the juice runs down my

fingers as I squeeze it into hers. What could any of this matter to another man passing on his

way to his family, his radio deafening the sound of water and breathing along all the roads bound to his?

But to rescue a soul is as close as anyone comes to God.

Think of Noah, lifting a small black bird from its nest.

Think of Joseph, raising a son that wasn't his.

Let me begin again.

I want to be holy.

In rain, I pull to my father's car with my girlfriend's infant.

She was eight weeks pregnant when we met.

But we'd make love.

...