Almost a Conversation

I want to stumble upon a cache of horrible poems by Mary Oliver

But before learning that she was in fact the person who wrote them

I want to laugh at them, to guffaw and tsk and shake my head

“Hey, listen to this!” I will shout at someone across the room, and then I’ll read a particularly trite or pedestrian phrase

Finally I’ll vocalize one of my signature breathy, derisive scoffs

Once I’ve performed all of my pharisaic disdain, I want to discover her initials on one of the pages

And I want it to dawn upon me, slowly, slowly, what I’ve done and whose poems these were

The one who penned “You do not have to be good”

And then I want to know in my bones what it’s like

To be a gull who finds just the right pocket of air to lift herself aloft without effort