Poetry makes me unhappy.
It makes me not me.
It’s easy to imagine and say
Night lives in the beautiful day.
Like a hypnotist, poetry can tell
Me I’m sleeping, and things are not well,
And I should remain sleeping
And in my imagination end all horror and end all weeping.
I’m happy after the poem is done;
I slept beneath a sleeping sun.
I danced—and the people saw
The poem and its poet are a law
Unto themselves. I still dance.
I still love. I still laugh. In a trance.
