You, there, listening
For the poem to speak a truth
Useful for the nights when one, surprised by a diagnosis,
Lies planning his funeral through vengeful tears—
Forgive it if it speaks of the gold dust of spring
Seeding the laces of boots.
Poems are as impolite
As they are perceptive, as beside the point
As the actual. Their gold sticks to unsuspecting hands
Tying and untying two ordinary knots
Then grasping other hands and objects.
What else can we offer
But our secrets and their failed understanding?
The surprised one lies alone with his vision—forever.
He craves comfort, while the poem strives to imagine him
Laboring to realize those knots will outlast him.
A poem’s wilderness can make you mad that way.
So that, stuck with it,
You go to him, maybe,
And try to give what no poem can.