My life, I feel, is a revenge against someone;
I just haven’t figured out who.
It could be the woman who tried to teach me verse.
But I suspect it might be you.
The one I loved. I don’t know. I keep looking at a view—
which, because I’m stubborn and true—
hardly changes.
I’m excitable when I’m not solemn, so sometimes
I doubt my solemnity is real.
Excitement—is this a sin?—is what I prefer to feel.
When a brute becomes more human
is this a man becoming more woman?
I don’t know. Evolution is slow,
and, except in superficial cases, not proven.
How is the cloth which alters itself woven?
All we see finally is crying death
in the proud shroud of our plain breath.
There were no poems on the invasion
because we were fighting the invasion.
Small poems were written
by those who ran away.
A national epic was written, finally,
long after the invasion
proving poetry to be without memory
and good, at last, when completely not true.
I have written poetry lately.
And the criticism is:
Can anyone see it’s not about you?