line upon line

i’m constantly collecting lines.

i’m not sure that’s useful.

perhaps i could become a poet

of fragments, or find a way

to shoehorn them into ghazals.

 

i fill page after page

with these bits and pieces –

journals full of disconnection

while i try to find some shape

to form them into a poem.

 

i must be foolish to believe in poetry;

that it is so necessary. so urgent.

 

i chase down the words

before i forget them,

collect them like butterflies.

or marbles. or stamps.

 

sometimes i think it is enough

to simply gather them together,

display them in array –

let someone else do all the work.

                        it’s tempting.

 

maybe the poetry is found

in the gaps, the spaces between

the edges, where the line

breaks, where you and i dance,

and the whispering breath.