I brought some things along I wanted
to read that I hadn't finished and this is one of them,
so I'm going to make some choices as I read,
so I have it written down.
See that-- I mean, however, it comes out
it won't come out that way again.
What I'm doing is writing what I hope
will be a whole book's worth of poems,
all written to my father.
And something I think I now realize
I've been putting off by writing the various single short poems
that in some way were to him or about him.
And this is one I thought might be a start,
I don't know how good it is.
That you father are in my mind some will argue,
who cherish the present, but flee the past.
They haven't my need to ask what was I,
asking instead what am I, they see themselves
bejeweled and winged.
Because they would fly and have value,
their answers are pretty but false.
Pyrite from the handy alchemists,
preferring stones to brains.
The brain remembers not foolproof either and does
and does until it can't.
Sudden quivering crossed and re-crossed, the mind
can become a headstone or be malice stuffed with fish.
Everything changes so quickly, you
who were and no longer in what I was I'm not.
Am I to know myself except as I was?
The rest is catchy, self promising, false.
Oh, please write to me and tell me.
I just want to be happy again.
That's what I was, happy.
Maybe am, you would know.