The Wet Soil

Regarding the effort I’d like to take
to justify my obsession
and pursue vindication
with every single person I knew,
I can’t: the explanation for taking such time
is suspect on its face and realistically,
no one will care. Not in the short term
and none, none at all in the long run.
It is important to me alone and so it should be.

It is important to me alone that the people
I harmed should know of it. Otherwise
they will pang briefly or sorrow long
for the possibility it represents
and then they will forget it — or
they themselves will pass before I go
and soon enough, no one will remember me.

It may be enough that my poems may be attached
to my name and that will be an adequate measure
of my life — or they won’t be. It may be enough
that my poems have no water in them, never did,
and the soil I was sure told of water on the moon
was an illusion and the soil never was wet, not at all.
The poem itself wasn’t wet enough to dampen the soil.
All that will be left will be a shower of stars.
All that will be left will be a saddened smile
on the face of someone who wasn’t there.

onward,
T