Who knew William Carlos Williams was
From Paterson, New Jersey, and a doctor to boot?
JJ knew, apparently, and probably lots
Of other folks who
[Might] call themselves “English Majors” or “Poets”.
I didn’t know, and I could be either, or both, or neither.
Poetry is everywhere, but most pressingly, most annoyingly,
it’s in my super-thin wrists.
Wrists too thin to wear bangles
Too weak to turn a wrench
Crushed and aching when I wake
Having slept with them clenched beneath
My own weight.
Today: a red and green cardinal pair
On a white winter blanket
And the ache of their beautiful cliche.
Yesterday: how the tree limbs fashioned that
same blanket into white gloves for a holiday ball
On elegant, leaveless fingers.
And the day before yesterday: I wanted
To write a poem about you being here
And reminding me that love is not
The same thing as the absence of pain.
But it seemed foolish to stop the nothing
I was doing just to write a poem.
Until I learned that in Paterson
William Carlos Williams was a doctor
And a poet and that, in Paterson,
That’s just the way things go—
So why not here, too?
~MG 1/2018
