I don’t need your slogans
or the umpteenth recitation
of your mythic pain.  I’m not
unsympathetic, but truly prefer
you stay out of your poem.

Tell me instead of the raw roots
that are ripped out by bombs
to dry in the flesh-stinking air,
and tell me of them
in their voices.  Make them sing

in the filthy wind.  Make me
cry because you’ve listened to them
and then gotten out of their way
to let them sing.  You and I can speak
when they’re done.

I know you’ve been hurt, been loved.
I know it because we are humans
and sharing is human.  Tell me instead
of the shape of pain in such a way
that my own pain takes that shape.

Step aside from your own story
and tell me my own, our own.  Mix it
with pain and joy in equal parts,
toss in boredom and impatience
and acceptance for flavor. 

And for the sake of all that is real,
don’t just say “boredom” or “suffering”
or “joy” and expect that to be enough.
I want to feel them like stones in the road
under my bare feet, unshod because

I was compelled to slip them off
when I entered your poem, as if I’d entered
a small church or the home of a
holy spirit and knew at once
I had to humble myself to hear.

Tell me of the crank on an old pump
that brings sweet ice water up
from the skin of the earth.  Put my hand on it
and then step back.  Let it come up
and splash me, and let me drink

for myself.  I’ve been parched for a long time
but I have not forgotten how to drink
from such a spring.  I will love the poem
more for the space you’ve left inside it
that holds the water.