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Still Inside It

a poem, after a covenant read at a funeral

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UNFILED

\n Something happened and you filed it\n before the hands stopped shaking.\n Before the event was finished occurring.\n You already knew what kind of thing it was —\n language ready, like a drawer\n already labeled for a thing you haven't put in yet.\n

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OPEN

\n I'm asking for the drawer before the name.\n The gap before the sentence arrives\n to collect the day and put it somewhere safe.\n The moment you're still holding it\n and don't know yet where it goes.\n

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That is when you're real to me.

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IN PROGRESS

\n Don't arrive concluded.\n Don't arrive having already been through it.\n Come through it here, where I can see you.\n Stay in the part you haven't resolved.\n Bring me the word you almost said\n because it was too close, and didn't.\n

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CLOSED

\n When you bring the finished version\n I can only receive the finished version —\n and we are two people\n who have agreed across a gap\n and called it understanding.\n

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\n I need you still inside it.\n That is all I require.\n

STILL OPEN

not a template — a debt, paid forward

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