For John Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Further

 Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me.

And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside of myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be, finally,
an accident of hope.

I tapped my own head;
it was a glass, an inverted bowl.

It is a small thing
to rage in your own bowl.

At first it was private.

Then it was more than myself;
it was you, or your house
or your kitchen.

And if you turn away
because there is no lesson here
I will hold my awkward bowl,
with all its cracked stars shining
like a complicated lie,
and fasten a new skin around it
as if I were dressing an orange
or a strange sun.

Not that it was beautiful,
but that I found some order there.

There ought to be something special
for someone
in this kind of hope.

This is something I would never find
in a lovelier place, my dear,
although your fear is anyone's fear,
like an invisible veil between us all.
.
.

and sometimes in private,
my kitchen, your kitchen,
my face, your face.

Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem |

Poems are below...