The Problem with Poetry

The problem with poetry is

You might confuse the author with the narrator

And refuse to see that it’s written about you,

Not me.

For example:

Do not envision the striped tent in my back yard

If I write about a pair of tennis shoes standing guard

When her sandals fly through the tent flap,

First one landing perfect on the mat,

The other dropping somewhere in the grass

Leather wicking up rain

Out in the darkness so that later she slyly asks

“Would it concern you if I said

That someone or something has taken my shoe?”

If I wrote this,

Would you understand that the girl in the tent is you?

Let the author disappear, the images blur

so you can hear the cicada chorus that drowns

A multitude of soft and hungry sounds

A first seeing

In deepest blackness

With fingertips for eyes

To survey a sun-warmed landscape

Of ribs and hips and thighs

Fingerpainting fairy dust

On unfamiliar flesh

Like Psyche and her secret husband

Beautiful in the darkness

Unglimpsed, unknown.

The hushed voice that speaks her name

May to a god belong—

If you trust mere fingerprints

To tell you what is true.

Will you reach for the lamp

Or dine in the dark

When the girl in the tent is you?

 Jeannie Babb