Who are you?
The person poems are written for,
you. Who are you?
Are you different every time,
or are you an ideal?
Are you a young woman with brown eyes
and trembling hands,
or are you a man
who can't see, or who dies?
Are you Abraham Lincoln?
Are you a middle-aged school teacher
whose body has changed? But you still hope
he sees you as the lithe with brown eyes?
Or blue. Or are you the man
who still loves?
Are you a flower, or star, or sun?
A dalliant eagle or cracked oyster?
Do you breathe or heart-beat?
Are you a grandmother, a brother?
Are you Barret Browning's thee
or the Bible's Thee?
Are you God?
Do you want people to keep writing
poems about you? Do you even know they do?
I don't know who you are,
or even if you do.
