TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

It’s no secret that I’m divorced. I’ve written about the end of my marriage in poems, and in my memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful. If you’ve been divorced, or if you’ve experienced the end of a long romantic relationship, you know how complex it is. Maybe you’re heartbroken that it didn’t work out. Maybe you’re relieved that you’re no longer in that relationship. Maybe you feel abandoned and discarded. Maybe you feel alive, and happy, and free. 

In my experience, more than one of these things can be true. When I got divorced, I remember the mixed feelings. A big part of me was devastated that we hadn’t made it work; another part of me was relieved, because it hadn’t been working. A part of me was terrified because I had no idea what the future held, and a different big part of me felt excited and free. I wrote in a poem once, “The trick of the future is it’s empty.” That’s where the excitement and terror come in: the future is empty, and we get to fill it. The future is unwritten, and we get to decide what the story will be. We get to choose what comes next. 

Today’s poem captures the exhilaration and fear of falling in love again after divorce. It’s a poem that I think encourages us to stay open, to have courage, and to risk our hearts again.

The Terror of New Love!
by Tiana Clark

for D

I thought about taking a picture.
To capture what? I decided to live

through the present moment instead:
ephemeral glaze, sentimental risk

with the numb tips of our chilled noses
grazing as we kissed and kissed.

The deep, droning whir of the ferry
boat bloating over Casco Bay, sailing

away from the fringe of Portland, Maine.
It’s inside the small, silent slices of time—

right? The terror of new love! The sun-
stung ripples, which made our eyes drip,

refracting and whiting out the landscape
to bright cream as we approached Peaks

Island. Who lives there? We wondered
and imagined as we gasped at the pristine

houses with massive windows perched
along the periphery. Talkless minutes

dotted with intermittent seagulls squawking
overhead. Cold crunch of November air.

Gentle foam frothing and trailing the stern.
It was almost sunset when I leaned back,

softened, and nuzzled deep in the camber
of your embrace, your chest another miracle

of comfort, your arms, another possible
home. I wasn’t worried about being

too much of myself—yet. In love 
again. The first time since the damage 

of my divorce. It was gradual, subtly
somatic without the anxiety attached.

You slipped in like a beloved book 
or special knickknack that had always 

been there, but somehow, I’m just now
seeing it on the shelf stacked and floating

in the part of my heart I’m trying to keep
ajar with a keener warmth. This it. Or itness?

A gentleness, a personal dispersal, not
of light, but a fresh, odd, familiar feeling—

this bluing calmness not totally erasing
the old fears but welcoming the chance

to try again, to be brave again.

"The Terror of New Love!" by Tiana Clark from SCORCHED EARTH © 2025 Tiana Clark. Used by permission of the poet and Simon & Schuster.