If a poem is about a cat
many come to read and love
one of the truest loves they know.
If a poem is about a river
or the ocean or a sunset
interest is sure to grow.
If a poem artfully confesses
a deep yearning or a wound,
many gather to console–
if it surfs toward sex
the text is dropped
for a lace camisole.
But if it’s just about a stark
unsentimental basic loneliness
grasping a truth by metaphor
chances are its limits
may be transcendental
but mean nothing at the bar.
*with apologies to my friend, Marta Nussbaum Steele, who once presented a poem by this title on the dissecting table of a poetry workshop in Harvard Square. I had been reading T.S. Eliot’ s “The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticism” and was enjoying a classic double martini when these lines occurred in the space of ten minutes.