Envoi

But it is not our wish to reproduce
             ourselves through you
                           the reader,
nor to reassure you that these words are true
or where the line breaks           there is a meaning
stabilized           by that news
speech is                        assuring you
our plans are still the same
as when we met original in formal theory
by the fridge on the streetcar
                    beneath some baggage of your satisfactions.
  
  
Over this our patience supports you
                beneath the topical tuck
which is basic
                            to a sand ruse for writing through
these intervals between
                            our disagreeable achievements
signed in the triplicate stage of the plainer style
moved on
(not much of it)             to where
the shade from the ilex soaks
the officer in charge
 
             by the octagon
 
                                                  in august
 
 
more or less.

Copyright Credit: Steve McCaffery, “Envoi” from Seven Pages Missing, Volume One: Selected Texts 1969-1999. Copyright © 2002 by Steve McCaffery. Reprinted by permission of Coach House Books.
Source: Seven Pages Missing, Volume One: Selected Texts 1969-1999 (Coach House Press, 2002)