To Write

Is to be in the dark reading a picture book,
The lances and swords of the invisible horsemen
Piercing our heart, dragging tattered scraps of our mind
Through the bare spring branches.

We enter a coal mine by way of a tattered rope.
We burn wax, and pieces of our hair, for light.
Blindfolded, we grope for a cat made of solid opal.
Finally, something!

Thinking we have found truth, we ding a small bell
Which sounds like a barbershop door opening
For a cavalcade of cockroaches.
When we get to the surface, we hold four yellow feathers
From the corpse of the miner’s canary.