New Leaf
So much fun with pronouns,
But in the end no certainty
That any fit.
And what if living stopped
In the house of optatives,
What legacy would be left
Beyond the obvious material effects
(royal mugs, a green vase
of my mother’s, Dad’s flower books)?
Every day now I visit
My own wood to see
How wildness structures space
With light and leaves,
And learn at last
To speak a language of the arbitrary
And keep saying it,
Before a visitor, out of respect,
Steps through the back door
To smoke a cigarette.