The chair
This rough, unpainted left edge,
With several nails driven into it,
I consider it some kind of injury,
A tearing away from all foolishness, pretense,
A stab at the truth of the matter,
And all this certainly matters…
See for yourself! It’s just a rough tire
of roughened, brown woven canvas,
Suitable for hanging raw in the moisture of a waste bin
If it weren’t here on the wall of this bedroom…
In fact, in all these wounds I see myself,
Afraid of all my ghosts,
That which must lie beneath it forever
Any smoothness of the surface
(Of which there is so pitifully little),
Any garnishes of crushed words
Of which occasionally
It seems I was almost capable…
As I was too, it seems,
From the making of this freshly transformed chair
From heavily pressed,
Brushstrokes with rough texture,
Homespun, quadrangular
And reliable as these words
From pathetic description must now
Try to make it, because this is all me.
Should I then invite you to agree?
