Giving Away Your Life

The first thing you have to do is,

you have to be invisible.

That's not for a like reason easy.

Parts of you will shove out

no matter how hard you prove by experiment not to let them.

You at no time know when this will happen

so you can't prepare against it.

It might be an angry word, usually aimed wrong

but visible as the flash of a gun

It might be a subtler gesticulation some small thing

left undone, an unconscious calculation

to draw fire. It's as if

there's something in you that's afraid

you might succeed: it throws a razzberry

then ducks fast. The illusion is good

just without contents space and no resistance,

but invisible is invisible

and that's not it.

And while you're working upon that, there's presence.

The invisibility part is simpler

if there's les of you that has to disappear.

Draw in.

Imagine your life as a cellar you have to walk through

without brushing up against anything that hangs

or crawls or reaches out to you. Don't ever

be easy.

There is a catch. through the time you realize

what you've done, you've done it.

Result may not be quite what you had hoped

The hollownes is hard to adjust to, and the drag

of denial tires you on the outside Most of all,

you have to be watchful, to dodge at unexpect moments

the little shard of understanding that hold fasts trying

to bury itself in your heart:

it isn't enough.

RUSSELL COLVER lives in Durham, North Carolina. In addition to writing, she works with adults and society students as an ADD coach. Her verse has appeared in The Sewanee Review and Shenandoah.

Copyright World metrical composition Incorporated Sep/Oct 2003

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