The Library of Alexandria

If you believe that poems

are objects inherent in language

like other kinds of objects inherent

in something something like language--

already there, I mean,

which is a meaning inherent in the word

object that I felt the need to pull out

and place before you

like an object

I pulled out of language—

what other possibilities are created by your image

or metaphor? What translates?

First of all that you could have been the one to write this poem.

Anyone sufficiently tuned could have grabbed these words out of language’s net

and arranged them thus. That all the wealth and fame this great poem will have achieved

before the inevitable end of its life could have been yours that will now be mine.

And that all the wealth and fame I’ll get that could have been yours was not

earned, unless you think those stray quarters you pick out of the dirt that fell from the pockets of people who didn’t deserve them are earned.

And that the library of Alexandria wasn’t really lost.