Extractabilia (A Confession)

With Thanks and Apologies to Robert Graves
© 1997 by M. Otis Beard. All Rights Reserved.

I will tell of a woman
of unenlightened tightness
Not quite a nibbler of quartz. . .
Her dogged and dogmatic insistence
on miracles in which she was faithless
The cramped and smoldering
humorless hate
that struck in proximity
of her well-jaundiced eye. . .
I will tell of a woman
carved from the stubborn
antarctic fields. . .
Her breathing too difficult
too steeped in the desperate
pollen of supernature to cry.

I will make my confession:
I loved her with all of me.
Is there greater contrition
beyond that sure knowledge?
I knew her, and loved her with all of me.

I stare at the page and have no ambition
except for this only: to have no ambition.
I have no sure knowledge
but this: knowledge changes
beyond any/all local proofs or disproofs.
Shall I sigh for a friendship
independent of geography
thriving on absence
drawing strength from sour earth?

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