Réentrée

There is nothing like peer review

to infuse in you the fear for writing.

One has to take the plunge one morning

and write for no other reason but the dew.

Whatever this is it is not autobiographical:

things do not have to be avant la lettre;

things can mean something else

not referring to the speaker, nor to

you, dear reader, of all people.

She did not marry him-

she was someone else,

and he was simply her invention.

That is the thing with poetry,

the focus, as you know, is on words

and lines and all those blank spaces;

god only knows what that void means,

like code, it makes you pay attention:

every character counts for different reasons,

in the context of its space and what is near.

 

Pessoa’s last names were his penance.