"Beyond the Everyday Mess,"
Aradhna Tandon
David Cummings

First Letter to My Reader

You are not they I went to them
with my words after many years
of working the dark finally
back with my prize they were having
none of it they had no heart-need
it was best left out of things too
simple too easily thought through
educations wasted and they
alone had a right to the words
that could tell the story almost
three years gone yet September comes
again the heart feels its silenced
anguish and they search too for words
but slant coy clever brilliant cool
they will have none of difference
they wait numbed want what looks away
and it's true they have killed me off
words no longer rise from roots like
spring sap mysterious faithful
that occasion of grace granted
time and again undeserving
always and more so now because
I took ambition along I
did not go to my father's house
empty-handed I came bribing
with poems forgetful of you
I left in the fields where poems
grow wealthy left you for old loss
held for me in a distant house
they turned me out and truth is I
wrote always for them wrote my heart
for people who despise such words
and I admit to you my shame
you whose name I can never know