About Not Writing: A Poem
The way old ladies board the bus without correct change
I sit by screen and try to write without words.
At this hour I could say anything: call a friend
in a foreign country, wake her up
with an American jolt
or call the information operator
in Iowa and ask what the weather
is doing, now, which is earlier this evening, out there.
Speaking’s easy. My words might orbit the earth
forever as sound,
but really they’re as gone as smoke.
It’s only typeface that can kill you.
Bad phrases, like hangovers, inspire regret
or abstinence.
The poem I liked earlier
is a cheat: a fake credit card,
a phony id,
a hologram without a third dimension,
just some shine.
I leave the keyboard, moving slowly
as I will —
and not so many years from now either —
disembark the bus and avoid the driver’s eye
because change
is no longer currency
just as the keys,
fiddle
as I will,
no longer
jimmy the locks.
