I knew she didn’t trust words
so I couldn’t deny what she suspected—
even though it wasn’t true.
I had my own suspicions about her—
what were words supposed to do?
Once a suspicion is sitting there
the cynical can only act like they don’t care;
but silence doesn’t work, either. Words
triumph in poetry much later; words
still live, long after the love is dead. Words
shown to be helpless in life, say here—
O my poem!—what couldn’t be said.