print previewback EDWARD MAYES
On Lines from Czesław Miłosz’s “Meaning”
The true meaning, ready to be decoded
—Although I seemed unsteady in the parking
Lot, it was the period at the end of
The sentence I seemed to have stumbled
Over, thinking isn’t there a comma missing somewhere,
Should we pause now, isn’t being born once enough?—In the purse I found on the street,
Ready money and a photograph of
A fallow horse, but no other clue
To identity, even for identity’s sake,
Have we had enough with perished, we’ve thought?—You rode all through that renaissance,
Quasi-imaginary light, you felt forgotten
But not forgiven, and I felt that the already-
Dead weren’t paying attention, even to
The stellar darkness, am not, are too, am not, are too.