does it take
for a poem
to wither
into abiding truth?
How many differing
slight iterations
before its bright, pliant lines
start to stiffen
and darken?
How long before
all of its slick words
start to dry
and its stark, solid images
soften up enough
such that any future reader,
no matter how doubtful
or artistically-uninclined,
could read the instructions
and easily reproduce them?
I have lost count
of the nights it has taken
for the full moon
to change
from bloodless—
to dovewhite
in the lowest-pitched hope
that, in the mind of a person
I don't even know yet,
it may hang everlastingly
in the heart
of their cosmos
and never start
to wane.
