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 total 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

more, more obvious than

my poems were ever

meant to be.

c.1979