…and we sprawl with it
and hear another world for a minute
that is almost there.
– William Stafford (“Sending These Messages”)
Almost like the code we tried at ten
to pass notes in school, letters mailed
our parents couldn’t comprehend—
it was our bond to a separate world
composed of pages of petroglyphs
that are lost, but not secret anymore.
Ah! All the love letters dispatched
to safe places beyond longing
for days and nights of perfect dreams.
I could have been an attorney
and learn to hate language, or
an accountant with only one answer—
cop or minister weary with humans.
But the places I didn’t go is small
by comparison: the thin, outer crust
to another world inside us all,
almost impenetrable. I work
around its edges, sending messages.
“Sending These Messages”
(if you get this far, the typo is ‘slant’)
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