What You Say to Yourself When No One Answers
by Rebecca Seiferle
don’t defend yourself
don’t betray the confidences of others to make yourself shine more fool’s gold
don’t defend yourself
even if she says that you slept with every woman who ever spoke to you
even if he accuses you of crimes
do not betray
the prophets
of your own heart
you are a bridge so others may tranverse their sufferings
you are the moment that grants them enough bread to get through
the starving
of a particular hour or day
do not betray this, all these moments of softness,
in order to make yourself
look better
in her eyes
he would not believe you anyway
let her condemn you if she is driven to condemn you, let her judge, jury
and execute you, or drive you into exile, if he is driven to judge,
jury and execute
she is suffering too, but you cannot bridge the suffering in him
just because she holds
you to account
you are not the coinage of restitution
don’t defend
the armor and take up the sword, even in self-defense, and particularly
the armor of self-justification and the sword of self-righteousness
and so betray
yourself
so what if softness is unfashionable, who has use for flowers anymore, if mockery
attends every blooming as catcalls of the outdated
and outmoded,
still,
the cells that form in the womb, the sprout that rises from the splitting dicotyledon,
the hairs of your head, even the hand
resting against the face of your sleep,
are green,
growing, forming
and fetal,
as water
flowing under stone, cutting under the bank, always finding its way
back to the depths and to the river in the sky
consider the distances
bridge them
and be soft
Copyright © 2012 by Rebecca Seiferle.
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