THE REMEDY

No sin committed out of need
is evilly conceived     no sin this
silence that pervades the mind     more
an innocence     a quiet time of neither
promises or lies     a small withdrawing
watching silence spread across the page
yesterday

     I un-invented paragraphs of mediocre
prose and turned
inattentive lines to rhyme     today
the storm has passed     in its wake
an empty slate     darkly
patient     waits

     I could have struggled through
at least a dozen tragedies     I could
have hovered on the verge
of tears     unsnapped the catches
on a score of albums
in the closet gathering dust     I could
have lost myself in autumn     sunk
beneath another season’s  agonized
demise  or walked an empty beach

     there is no end to things
I know to do to make me sad     to bring
the mind around     to cultivate the need
it is a simple     hateful remedy
if I would write
I must first bleed.

~Susan A. Katz 

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