In a Sweater Poorly Knit

in a sweater poorly knit and an unsuspecting smile,
little Moses drifts downstream in the Nile.
a fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh,
i'm carried helpless by my floating basket raft.

your flavor in my mind swings back and forth between
sweeter than any wine and bitter as mustard greens,
and it's light and dark as honeydew and pumpernickel bread,
the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

go plow some other field try and forget my name.
see what the harvest yields and, supposing i'd do the same,
i planted rows of peas and by the first week of July
they should have come up to my knees but they were maybe ankle high.

take the fingers from your flute to weave your colored yarns
and boil down your fruit to preserves in mason jars.
now the books are overdue and the goats are underfed.
the trap i set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

you're a door without a key, a field without a fence.
you made a holy fool of me and I've thanked you ever since.
if she comes circling back we'll end where we'd begun
like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one.

but if i'm a crown without a king, if i'm a broken open seed,
if i come without a thing, then i come with all i need.
no boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head
the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!


i do not exist. only you exist.