I don't always understand poems
The enjambment tugging at my shirt too often,
Or words too fat for my Indian teeth.
Sometimes it's the pure unavailability of simple things
Like the weather of snow and my Kolkata sweat
Nothing alike. But it shouldn't matter
Should it?
I almost never understand myself
How it gives up on imagination
The very moments I need it,
How else can I cry to that song?
I keep writing about how I don't know how to read
An unkind man would perhaps call me out
Throw my circular logic at my face
Push me to shout and accept my lack.
I don't always understand poems
And I almost never understand myself
And if you ever ask me to explain the ones I write
It would be like explaining a joke,
Only a thousand times worse,
Imagine period cramps that last all year,
Imagine something else if you don't get them.
Poetry, jokes, goals in life,
I have to imagine something else if I don't get them
But my brain (for I have no heart) gives up too soon
I'll just keep writing about it,
I guess,
Or imagine something else to do.