Superiority does not acknowledge you.
Everything else does. It gets inside you.
It makes you itch. It satisfies your thirst.
Not superiority. Superiority is the worst.
It doesn’t look at you, and if it does,
You are not sure if it is.
You know it is better. It is better because
It is beautiful without any moving parts,
Without any uncanny belonging to the darker arts.
The superior is sunny and plain in a way that disorients
All learning. You stare and hope it looks
At you. Not even in the ancient books
Of lengthy poems depicting the deeds
Of gods and mortals in their clamorous needs
Have you seen, or imagined, or felt
Anything like this. Once, a slender goddess knelt
Before an unskilled god. You were reading
Myths, as a child, on the floor.
The anger that was leading to war!
But now, a tortured person,
You look at this person on the train…
What are they doing? Writing a poem?
How old are they? In that casual, sexual domain,
You see the placid lake of all poetry!
This is superior, you think, because
The great doesn’t look at you. But it does.