“Appointment in Samarra” by Julia Wendell

I ran into the old Mesopotamian tale again in a John O’Hara novel

where a dissolute character gets his due.
It reassured me that things happen

as they are supposed to.
Then I fell off a stool, got knocked out

and broke three ribs,
and all my plans to breathe shattered.

Could have been worse, everyone said.
It wasn’t meant to be, whatever was supposed

to happen instead of.
You’ve got years ahead of you still.

And I thought again
of that merchant’s story

that puts the onus of living on the universe.
A tap on the shoulder, a start of surprise,

a not wanting to believe
in the accident of survival, which is us.

Artist Statement

I like clarity in poems. I want poems to move me. I want to feel something visceral as I read them. If I like a new one, I keep it close and keep re-reading it. In “Appointment in Samarra,” I am ruminating on the idea of fate, and how what we may have thought of as fateful and supposed to be can change when major events happen. In this case, the speaker moves from being a believer in what is meant to be, toward accepting the role of chance and the “accident of survival.”

Julia Wendell’s new collection of poems, Daughter Days, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. She is Founding Editor of Galileo Press, lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider.