Letter will lead to letter.


This you knew when first
you spelled a word.


Later to learn that a word
can be a kind of madness


leading only to another.


Isn’t this what you knew
when words first made a poem?


(Unreasonable, vulnerable —
until another word,


like a visitation,
scythed through.)




*




This you knew.


Hearing a poem,
you knew this.


Those days — casting words about
until a line promised


to echo nothing
that you’d heard


And then, this you felt:


to make such a life
had been required of you


when first you heard a word.