If I create some
‘SHE’,
deliberately obscured,
and then I ponder
on her fixations with the storm,
her obsession with the things she fears.

Then am I doing it right?

If I call her beautiful,
and pretend

for the length of a parody

that her rose hides her thorns,
as her thorns hide her delicacy

Then am I doing it right?

Do I pretend the wind bends the poplar,
behind some advertising van?

Do I mourn the loss of literature,
or the rise of the dead minded man?

Do I lament a New Beasley Street,
or celebrate it, or
do I shake,
with passing time or
hands with an unarmed soldier,
or congratulate a pope in excused rhyme?

What do I do, what must I do,
for myself to believe,
ignorant of you,

that I am finally doing it right?