she made me live in the only way i’ve ever been alive, with
a chance to forget everything except how a train can’t see its own tracks.
she probably never knew how much one can cultivate from terror. that i was
never someone someone couldn’t live without.
though she combined whitman’s earthy personalism
with sylvia’s insatiable rebellion she often couldn’t compete
with technology or tomorrow’s oblivion. something
which never occurred to me while i wrote my first poem
under the shelter of her suicide. and what daring! she can’t
have been much further along than me when she wandered
away, like i soon learned to. that’s where we want to be, poets.
close enough to hear another pulse. far enough to want more if it’s there.
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