sometimes poetry

i don’t know what to tell you

there are secret poems

i would be a fool

to speak them to you

i’m not sure what a poem is

what it’s supposed to hide

how much weight a word may bear

how much do i give away

how do you choose what to hold –

do you use the right hand or the left?

what is the gift being offered

or is there even a gift?

we speak the words into being

give the stories skin and bones

an architecture of hope

that there is someone listening

that even a soft still voice still

makes an imprint on the world

now i speak through a cloud darkly

(no. that’s not it)

now i see through a glass darkly

each phrase a broken mirror

perhaps it isn’t that big a mystery after all

perhaps it was never meant to be one

sometimes poetry plays games with you

sometimes you even win