John McChord

Paper

 

Ink

Sits lonely in the well

I ask her,

“What thoughts are trapped in your eyes?”

Or so, as I suppose, they were stuck behind mine












Will the bird not sing?

Will the moon not shine?

Does the sun also rise, or do those tiny lies sink like late daylight?

Does the poet wish to say a thousand things unsaid?











I thought I’d seen that once, in a Hopper

In Morning Sun

Unless I’d read her wrong as well

My monument to loneliness

 

My thousand songs, not sung

My words, unsaid, unwritten

That I so desperately, so longingly

Wish would be read

Without touching the paper