Estate Sale
July 7 2009


The old poet
had run out of words.
All he had were the spaces,
punctuation
blank verse.

But all language is metaphor
he consoled himself,
meaning exactly what he said
no more, and no less,
purged of the clever misdirection
he used to serve-up instead.

Young poets breathe fire
chain smoke
sweet-talk the girls,
convinced they will save
an unwilling world.
His ambition
is far more humble —
to rescue himself,
to make sense of death,
and to use up what’s left
— the straight-ahead words
he found hard to express.

Like
“I could have loved
so much better . . .
or “The imagined transgressions
I forgive, and forget . . .
or “My magnificent debt
of gratitude.”


His entire life’s work
in a battered blue desk
— locked drawer, bottom left —
auctioned off, in a single lot
to the highest bidder;
desk, plus contents
sight unseen.