I wish I knew how this poem would end.
Or, for that matter, how it starts.
But starting’s not the hard part, is it?
I can say, “I’ve still got my physical health”
Or
“The cat is staring sphinx-like out the window”
Or
“The berries by the road were bright; I thought, they can’t be poison.”
Any first line will do, because, in the beginning,
you’ll follow me anywhere.
It’s the endings that are harder.
After you’ve followed, line after line
physical health no longer such a certainty.
Cat’s died and been replaced by other cats,
Mittens, Soxes, Scouts, too many to remember, now
we keep a porcelain one on the mantlepiece and call it Charlie.
There’s danger,
if I’ve not thought things through
that on some evening in a final stanza when
time and lines are running out
and both of us can see it —
a danger that you’ll turn to me,
that hopeful look,
the one that breaks my heart to disappoint
and say
What was the point,
again,
of the berries?
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