In A Sweater Poorly Knit

in a sweater poorly knit and an unsuspecting smile
little moses drifts downstream in the Nile
a fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh
I’m carried helpless by my floating basket raft
your flavor in my mind swings back and forth between
sweet rhan any wine and bitter as mustard greens
light and dark as honeydew and pumpernickel bread
the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

as you plow some other field try and forget my name
see what harvest yields, and, supposing I’d do the same
I planted rows of peas but by the first week of July
they should have come up to my knees
but they were maybe ankle high
take the fingers from your flute to weave your colored yarns
and boil down your fruit to preserves in mason jars
but now the books are overdueand the goats are underfed
the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

you’re a door-without-a-key, a field-without-a-fence
you made a holy fool of me and I’ve thanked you ever since.
if she comes circling back we’ll end where we’d begun
like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one
or if I’m a crown without a king, if I’m a broken open seed
if I come without a thing, then I come with all I need
no boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head,
the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

I
do
not
exist
only
YOU
exist