In A Sweater Poorly Knit

in a sweater poorly knit and an unsuspecting smile

little moses drifts downstream in the Nile

a fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh

I'm carried helpless by my floating basket raft

your flavor in my mind swings back and forth between

sweet rhan any wine and bitter as mustard greens

light and dark as honeydew and pumpernickel bread

the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

as you plow some other field try and forget my name

see what harvest yields, and, supposing I'd do the same

I planted rows of peas but by the first week of July

they should have come up to my knees

but they were maybe ankle high

take the fingers from your flute to weave your colored yarns

and boil down your fruit to preserves in mason jars

but now the books are overdueand the goats are underfed

the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

you're a door-without-a-key, a field-without-a-fence

you made a holy fool of me and I've thanked you ever since.

if she comes circling back we'll end where we'd begun

like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one

or if I'm a crown without a king, if I'm a broken open seed

if I come without a thing, then I come with all I need

no boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head,

the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

I

do

not

exist

only

YOU

exist