Poetry #2

Round Robin

This poem will begin with a statement of in
activity within the first two lines. Usually,
I address someone else; it will not do to let
a poet ramble on, like a train chugging beyond
the last station, pretending that there are still railings
beneath its wheels. The tension within the poem,
in this case, is fear – I am afraid to tell you
what I want, because I do not want to drive
past the 24-hour McDonalds’ at the corner
of the highway and the street, wondering why
I never had the courage to go inside.

In other cities, there will always be someone
who looks exactly like you, searching
for the lost lines on his palm, asking the air
why Point A never reached Point B. Somewhere
in this poem, there will also be an image
of the moon: an eye watching over us, omnipotent
and pale, wanting a closer look but never able
to do more than dip an invisible finger
into the saltwater stretches of the world.
You will want to ask me what it all means;
you know I cannot answer questions. Everything
rests on the silence that curls around
each word, carefully chosen, shells
scattered on an abandoned beach.

You tell me that I am contradictory. This
imagined conversation occurs in a coffeeshop,
where I’ve had my heart broken every other month.
You’ve always suspected it was my tears
that made it bitter. That is called a metaphor,
which should have run throughout this entire
poem, in order to fulfill the requirements
of organic unity. But there is nothing unified
about love, that theme repeated by every writer
of every age. All feelings are fragmented,
inexplicable, worn strands of twine connecting
the last boat to the rickety pier, bobbing up and down
on the shallows, where we will sit even after
we have said all that we wanted to say.