January 24, 2017

cut and paste

I wonder sometimes if I am writing the same poem over and over.
If I’ve lived in the rooms of the lines so long, I’ve left crease marks on the furniture.
Images, words have gone soft, sinking further away from their edges.
The hazy pattern of raindrops on the windows, the dim ache in the heart.
This isn’t the time to shuffle the tiles, hope a fresh arrangement will spell something else.
Today’s prayer needs its own incantation, separate from the old chorus.
I don’t know how to begin, exactly; my hands, like clockwork, reach for scissors and thread.
I stitch poems to the backs of those that came before.
Underneath, the table bears the marks and scraps of industry.
What has been discarded in the name of art is also art.