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.
Next, 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.
