There is no way to give and receive
properly; this is the great dilemma facing all.
When I’m invited and I must pick
a gift I feel defeated and sick.
Any civil, obligated exchange
makes me feel insufficient and strange.
Life is our gift but life
was given for what reason? She kissed me
three times. If I kiss her back twice, my lack
will tire out excuses, but counting out three
will be very dull of me.
And if my response is to kiss her four
times this might lead
to weariness and need
and she might not kiss me anymore.
Giving involves so much anxiety
Person after person closes up.
I always find it odd
when people stop giving, yet God
allows lives to be plundered
even though they prayed, obeyed, and wondered.
Now that I have lived awhile,
Gifts resemble a superficial smile.
We must work so hard
for a gift of glass, a shard.
I wrote poems to her who did not write poetry
and it filled her with absence and jealousy.
Do I count myself misunderstood
if my gifts were greater than her good?
She represented something better
than my kiss, than my letter:
She was God’s face. When I gave,
I filled with poems my own grave.
She received my poems with her eye
and then on my birthday
she did something sly—
she sent me a photo of flowers
she picked and arranged;
the picture of her bouquet
was a poem I could never throw away,
flowers I could never smell or touch.
A gift lasts forever
or isn’t very much.
She had figured out the gift to give
which duplicated mine.
I’m an idiot (who lost her). Her gift was a secret sign
she was more intelligent than I was; she was more divine.
Her gift was the best, but I failed to see
I’m a pitiful poet and should give up rivalry.