WITH THE GREEN COVER

WITH THE GREEN COVER

I was reading your
second novel

the thin most writerly patriarchal trauma one
with the green cover

wrote a iffy little academic article about it that I let
myself be fooled
was
   so on the nose
close to the bone

and me
your student, forever
your student, never
going to escape
out of
the heart of
that shadow

and now
        that I am older even
than the oldest character
in that tortured idyll

I begin to wonder about all
the ghosts and their voices
and
all the spirit rivers
shapesbifting entities of
standing
   in this land

Oh we have our angels and demons and
rich tapestries of mythology,
you yourself
so valiant
    in the resonant
production thereof

to the extent that if
I am ever going to
escape
    myself
escape anything, everything

am going to have to
return to those pages again
yet again

unmiss
what I most certainly
did miss
    hope it hits  me his time
truly and viscerally