Tuesday, October 27, 2015

THE MYSTERY WRITER

This morning 
I am turning—

and reading over
all the leaves;

old,
wet spider-
brown pages,
scattered everywhere

but empty—
and taciturn
save for whenever 
a quick piss of wind sends them rumbling.

What? 
or—is this?
Poetry? I wonder. 

Who?
is this?
A poet? They whisper.

And I shiver 
a moment then, and turn aside
with a cheap sneeze, before 
unbending to leave

with a gait more 
open than before—cold, 
damp, but lighter, because divested 
by these wordless exchanges, borne 
inward on some clever
mere air—of the stale knowledge

that my testimony will remain
inadmissible, not
because 

a warrant here
has yet to be granted,

but because none 
had ever been
needed.