Ars Poetica

After not showing in a poem how I once was boring, I spend weeks collecting proof  from my past for readers who wanted to know. I have difficulty deciding the best prop for my poem:

    A) from the outside, the crack of a bathroom stall framing a girl’s eye

    B) an unmoving sleeping bag

    C) a shaky piece of paper or hand

    D) sunspots in the ceiling of a girl’s closed eyelids

What is the shape of the girl’s body in the sleeping bag, and how long can she remain unmoving? Is she sleeping or pretending to sleep? someone might wonder.

I don’t know whether to prefer the girl’s body seen (yes, hers is like yours) or unseen (you already know what it looks like, yours).

On the other hand, her body must appear at least a little unlike yours.

The previous ending to this poem released the girl from having to appear in future poems of mine: “Go, I tell her / and picture her filling the ceiling with peelable stars.”

I didn’t want to change the lines that relieved me from question-answering and gave me hope.

I pictured one day wanting to write about the girl again, reversing myself.

In the original version, no one sees her, not even to look at her wrongly.

The bedroom ceiling above her recalls the earlier ceiling—a space in the mind.

In my mind, she hasn’t yet become the weakest point on her body.

In the poem, I keep feeling the walls for another ending for her.