what i was
was an injury
unpatched. i was
unnoticed evil. i was
public good and that felt
like i was a balloon stretched too
tightly, full of air, ready to
pop and leave scraps and sound
behind me. i never knew
anything about love on my own, just
what i felt from the person across from me —
at least until the end, when a glimpse came to me
so late its promise made me laugh
before i wept. too late
i recognized the dead man in my poems
who mocked me — how can you create, son,
if there’s nothing inside you to work with?
i was a wound with a ragged edge
and a stitch or two, here and there, that
had long ago let go and left only
black threads to show the attempt.
i was futile, i was a robe on the bed
without a body to fill it, and when i finally understood
how little there was of me i let even that slip away.
you can read my poems now and imagine
a man who wrote them. i never knew him.
what i was was a script for a poet, not
the poet himself. you can protest
but i won’t hear it. i don’t
have an ear on my head that’ll work for me.