17
A PUZZLE FOR MY DAUGHTER


The cry:
opening into a broken

like all the books

in & under
snorts, whips
& some new impediments

If you hear, really hear voices
it may mean you're mad or
it may mean someone's trying
to talk to you & you're just
missing somehow

& in the middle
I see you, starting to write
some man's name on the steamed-up window
& then erasing it
before anyone happens to glimpse
& getting up with a promise

& that cry opens like a broken roof
or like a book you ought to read, but
in & under what we are & where
is a sort of painful comedy you know
for there can't be any new impediments
to just listening to what is told
& then you talk back, & you say