Year after year,
a poet's complexion
seem to worsen:
each new pockmark
or pimple
is a line we
should have written;
every blemish, some
vague image unexpanded,
gone to waste;
every wrinkle, a metaphor
we've failed
to expand on—
or abandoned
for the sake of some fetish
with concision. Yes,
little by little,
our skin dries out
and starts to tighten,
as we feel
entire stanzas—open spaces
deep inside us
closing their shutters,
locking their doors,
growing dusty
as our cheeks fall
and our jaws
become rusty,
until one day,
we're left
with no expression
but the blank
verse of rueful
confusion on our faces.
