…but I want to change the world

I don’t know what poetry is.
At 33, I’ve read very little,
and written even less.
At school, on the other shore
of the salty void
that separates the child from the adult,
poetry was obligation, beauty
wanging in frames,
words as real as cubes of ice
that hurt to chew, and left me thirsty.

I don’t know what poetry is.
At work, poetry is an acid,
in it, the walls are stripped bare,
clothes are stripped bare,
teeth rot,
no suits, no smiles, no awards
for running a small nonprofit.

At 33, I am married. My wife is pregnant.
We love each other, our son, our Beagle.
Have a home, a mortgage, a yard.
Don’t worry about money.
Are happy.

But if I knew what poetry was, I’d say:
The diapers I wore and now change;
the homework I refused to do
because I was a Romantic
and Romantics don’t do as told;
my two years wearing all white
because I wanted to be pure
and knew no other way;
the implausible ambition that
these words outlive me like a mineral,
that my work overcome injustice
the way barnacles scuttle ships;
and the pool of blood in which
all human longing swims, alone,
wrestling currents…

Still I seek that other shore
where I can meet myself
at last
and unload the cargo of my potential
before all goes dark and nothing matters anymore.

Written on Tuesday, May 29, 2018