Künstlerroman

In a number of rooms in a number of states
I began then abandoned notebooks.

Pages long and blank. Sparse fragments
in the margins:  eager for otherwise     a second infancy

Inside me, bones inflating,
kites crowding a florid dome.

In answer to a question, the poet said
I write to return opacity to the glassbright world.

Line after line slackened. My benedictions
darkened like lack into night’s eventual black.

The dead artist said for a painting to move us,
it must become, not remind us of life.

I stood vainly for many months, watching snow
sink to the bottom of my mirror.

For protection, I studied the contours
of a deeper sorrow than the kind I grew.

I thought I thought best with my hands
in my hair, sweeping fears off my face.

My nothing was novel—my desire
for a different ending is a failure of imagination.

All my life it’s been there, dormant
knell ringing my neck.

I was a finch, a feathered bellwether.
Or I am an organ wringing, then wrung.