The Poem on Your Table.
Inside the poem, a girl walks down the street.
A man composes a letter.
The first hush of winter divides them.
At the end of the poem, a long white silence.
And at the beginning, the same.
All around the poem, the real world gathers,
where, just now, snow descends, making so soft a sound
you hear your heart keeping track of the time.
Again, you hold the poem in your hand.
Again, inside it, everything that has already happened
begins.
The terrible white page stretches in front
of the man sitting at the desk.
The girl gathers her things together, opens a door,
and walks into the dark, where the first snow of the year
falls around her and makes of silence a voice she can almost
hear.
She does not know where she is going
or what she may have left behind or lost.
As she listens to her footsteps, marking the time,
she does not remember how she found herself inside this poem.