Read and listen to Elizabeth Loudon read her poem “Renunciation,” published in Shō No. 8 (Winter 2025/26). “Renunciation” was selected by guest editor Cecily Parks for inclusion in Best New Poets 2025.
Renunciation
The Embassy waiting-room clock is broken,
the TV split into two relentless heads.
Children push wooden balls on a track,
tackety-tack, mute with uncertainty.
The lawyers told me to keep my answers short.
When my number comes up I stand
before bullet-proof glass
and count out words like small change.
A year ago. One daughter.
The first time my heart beat American,
a woman in piney woods lifted her shirt
over her head, singing Puccini.
Because I need to simplify my life.
The second time, the car flung sideways.
I had time while we spun to imagine all kinds of worst.
Snowploughs came to scrape us free
and a stranger with sober eyes gave us sweet tea.
Nobody made me. By train, last night, by myself.
With one scrawl I’m forever no longer yours
to whom I gave my only begotten,
I’ve no say left, here
where no time shows it’s time to go.
At the gate, guards shift guns
from left to right, signatures of heft.
My longer answers are folded unsigned
inside my pocket. I fell in love
with the man who walked over ice
to help us, who said nobody could blame bad weather,
in future accidents he might even walk on water.
Moment upon moment we continued
to live, to forgive, it was never the last time yet,
nothing was taken that couldn’t be replaced.
Each time you lifted your hand, you promised.
About this poem: It took me years to become a US citizen – and as many years to decide, with very mixed feelings, to renounce my US citizenship. I went by myself to the Embassy in Brussels to swear the oath of renunciation and left broken-hearted. I wrote this poem in the following hours.
Elizabeth Loudon is a poet and novelist. Her debut novel, A Stranger In Baghdad (AUC Hoopoe, 2023), won the Sharjah International Book Festival award for best international fiction. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous journals, including North American Review, Amsterdam Review, Columbia Review, One Art Poetry, and Southword. After 25 years in Massachusetts, she returned to her native England, where she spends as much time as possible outside.