The Message
There are strange things done
at some editorial desks
perhaps in frustration
that what reaches them
falls short of
editorial expectation.
Take, for example
a sheaf of poems, returned.
I look at them, neatly typed
and hopefully sent out;
the sum totals of my
experiences and perceptions.
Plainly, there is a pattern
on the virginal white
the back of the sheaf.
A neat pattern of criss-cross
pleasing in its symmetry
faint and unobtrusive
like a watermark. Puzzled
at first, then as I held the
page to catch the light
I realized the pattern was
the imprint of a shoe.
There is a message there.
It comes through loud and clear.
As clear as I had hoped my
poems to be; as positive
as I had held my poems
to be. The message though
indelible, more obvious than
my poems were ever
meant to be.
c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Pub 3, Summer 1979
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