The poem as love affair

I have started the poem but the poem does not know it yet. I am more than flirting with it, more than interested that it will flirt back, send me some signal across the darkness that something

 

might be taking                           shape

I don’t know
maybe the poem isn’t interested maybe nothing will happen maybe

 

that something might be in the offing after
that something might be in the offing after the long months
(I cannot tell you how long

                because I do not know               how long it is; I am not

an accountant

)                                                  of nothing

that something                                                                        I dare not say love

I dare not say affair

that something might be actually occurring between me and the paper

a stirring
a sense
a                                   sixth sense

that I have started the poem but the poem does not know it yet. I am more than flirting with it, more than interested that it will flirt back, send me some signal across the darkness that something that

something

every muscle I own tense, held, like breath over a newborn
hoping from memory against darkness and

I can’t tell you                         how long
but it has been          long

against the darkness (this is never about me, whatever the poems might tell you)
I will keep on signalling/scribbling

hope against hope (hope)

hoping

                       that the poem is interested

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