Ars Poetica

Maybe because I’m dying.

I thought it was the sun 

splintering my thumb

the first time I held a bee. 

& sometimes,

I want to crawl inside myself

the way caterpillars do. Or

swallow another, 

the way snakes can.

I’ve told the dead to let me sleep— 

they can talk forever. 

In dreams, I’ve swum in the lake 

of a woman’s black hair, 

who was not my wife. 

Perhaps I desire too much 

the things I’ll never have. 

Or the things I’ve lost.

As a boy, I once sat on a bridge,

& watched the whole world 

go under.