In college I wrote a poem about my mother.
This isn’t surprising. Not
a kind poem—in particular,
the last word. Such a good word,
the professor said. Please don’t ask me
to repeat it here. The other students
expressed great sympathy for
the poem’s speaker, a young man
strikingly similar to myself. The poem
was accepted for publication
by the college magazine, of which
I was the editor, and I presented it
to my mother for Christmas,
a proud son indeed. Perhaps nothing
about this story is surprising, including
the fact that when the time came
I found the old magazine
at the bottom of a box in the back
of a dark closet. What good
is poetry? Robert Hass says
to put the problem in the poem.
Here’s the problem: I loved my mother.
I loved my mother, and she is dead.
I loved my mother, she is dead,
and I never told her I was sorry.
There you have it. Yes, of course,
I’ve revised the poem.
You wouldn’t even recognize it now.
Some people say that when a poet
searches for a poem’s heart
and cuts a stanza here, a line there,
even just one word, a shadow remains,
shadow of what’s no longer there.