Representation

I have no conscience because I

always chew my pencil. Can we say

white paper

with black lines on it

is like a human body? This question

not to be decided by pointing

at a tree nor yet by a description

of simple pleasures.

Smell of retrieval. Led to expect the wrong

answer. An arsenal without purpose

but why yes please.

There is no touching the black box.

The tree not pointed at lives

in your bringing up the subject

and leaves space for need, falling.

The white ground. The waning heat.

I’d like

to say the history of the world.

Or that grammar

milks essence into propositions

of human kindness.

The difficulty here’s not true or false

but that the picture’s in the foreground

and its sense back where the gestures link

so closely to the bone

the words

give notice.

The application is not easy.

Source: Another Language: Selected Poems (Talisman House Publishers, 1997)