“After a first book”

Paper is neither kind nor cruel
 only white in its neutrality
 and I have for reality now
 the brown bar of my arm
 moving in broken rhythms
 across this dead place.

All the poems I have ever written
 are historical reviews of a now absorbed country
 a small judgement
 hawking and coughing them up
 I have ejected them not unlike children
 now my throat is clear
 perhaps I shall speak again.

All the poems I have ever written
 make a small book
 the shedding of my past in patched conceits
 moulted like snake skin, a book of leavings
 now
 I can do anything I wish
 I can love them or hate them
 use them for comfort or warmth
 tissues or decoration
 dolls or Japanese baskets
 blankets or spells;
 I can use them for magic
 lanterns or music
 advice or small council
 for napkins or past-times or
 disposable diapers
 I can make fire from them
 or kindling
 songs or paper chains

Or fold them all into a paper fan
 with which to cool my husband’s dinner.