What It Takes Before You Have Something Worth Saying
Not at first,
only pen smeared songs
on tangled notebooks at fifteen
while I wrote what could not
be said, not for some boy
but to remove – the things
too strong
to hold
like the hundred under my bed.
Then at twenty,
In fear of transparency,
I made anecdotes
of people I did-….not know,
they fell
flat, like shirtless on my shopping bag.
Then at thirty,
The eye behind the lens, the finger
on record of what was said,
what was not.
took them,
all in.
Still looking through icy windshields.
At forty,
I spontaneous burn the thoughts attached to
the things I want to hold. Looking back
to learn ahead to be something I haven’t been.
At fifty,
it is told, in type, bound, packaged, weaving,
quilt’d simmer
of domestic
amiss,
to make easier for the next woman in my shoes.
Michelle Gilliam 