Poetry as the confession box

POETRY AS THE CONFESSION BOX
(ELSE THE TROLLEY POEM)

“I am and I am not the narrator of my poems.” – 

This poem is a glass box. I am inside it.
I tried to write myself out once, to write
others in. But people know. They
see right through the clear, and there

I am, badly drawn faces enacting
some elaborate scene with awkward
dialogue. Questions, answered hours,
weeks, and years after it was posed.

A train wreck either way, of course.
Doctrine of double effect, your train
can pummel into five people or
one. Perhaps I am large enough 

to throw myself in front of it, crisis
averted, problem solved. But there is
no train, only a poem, an enclosure,
and I am inside of it. If you come

closer, as close as you can, you'll see
my breath fog up the glass. Press your
hand up on this crystalline vessel,
you’ll feel my fingers intertwine with yours.

Illustration by Simone Hadebe