Unfinished Poems

Two in particular,
two not yet in fact
even begun,
should be finished
before
I claim to be
finished,

but it won’t happen.

I imagine this is a form
of grief I’m feeling,
distantly akin to seeing
your children die,
or to imagining clouds
meant to bring rain
that will never even form.

When
I think of all of you
who will not know
how these two would have been
Great Round Pegs
in the Great Round Holes
of your understanding of me,
of my understanding of myself,
of things I’ve seen,
the explanation
of how I worked and what you meant
to how I worked, perhaps even
engendering
some kind of forgiveness:

yes, it is a form of grief I am feeling.

I”ll let them go.

Someone will do it.
Not for me,
but because it will need doing.
Because they’ll know the need to do them.
Because my name is unimportant to the doing.

Because I am not the sole purpose
of being, because they will be
regardless –

this is a form of relief
I am feeling.