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.