A Poem That Starts Out Wrong
Put nothing down to distress the reader.
No barking dog.
No rustle in the place whispers belong
or photos of petals near collapse.
Erase oranges of confusing taste, a face
wrinkled or in pain,
a map with waterless rivers or water
without a bend,
still in darkness. Here, where mystery
beyond hope comes too near,
make a bright flight of leaves
descend, none to smear all our spotless
rivers. A map folds and unfolds, does not
bunch or wrinkle. Rainbows to last.
The First Endlessness of Eden.
This was the spot I was to start on, a leg
steps out of the lake,
a step falters instead into dashes that spread without prints onto the screaming bank.
Copyright Credit: Landis Everson, "A Poem That Starts Out Wrong" from Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005. Copyright © 2006 by Landis Everson. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press.
Source: Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005 (Graywolf Press, 2006)