#930 dear murderer,

i want to thank you for your gift of death
you killed me with your poetry
stuck a serrated knife between my ribs with each line
pulled the knife out with each line break

i was reading
felt my self die
your letters on my monitor
you changed me

i skipped old Me's funeral
not enough time
what with the ginormous to-be list you inspired in me

before your poem, i thought the world was one thing
like, for example, the colour green
until you removed my green-lensed glasses
folded them, inserted in your breast pocket

i still saw green, but now understood and knew green
beside white and blue and red
and all colours lips ever said

murderer,
thank you for your gift of birth
i see sidewalks and kitchen clocks,
like kellogg's corn flakes,
again
for the first time

i taste larger happiness in one sip of wine
than in a vat
i smell the zen in a one-bite supper
not every night
but some now and some then
i touch the visceral satsfaction
inside my bodied soul
a soul that glows like a lighthouse,
when i see at the end of my work day's commute,
my wife's mouth,
shape-shifting into a horseshoe, aligned for luck

i know you weren't advising me to be patient to the kids i work with
weren't warning me to learn that fly rods and figure skating mattered to two of them
weren't suggesting that one smile beats ten perfect instructions
i know you weren't
but you did

you aimed for truth, released your bowstring, and struck truth's meat
whatever lesson was in that meat for you
must have differed from me
for poetry is an imperfect translator

but truth means truth
in my language too

so
may old Me rest in peace
may the life that walked away from the chalk outline
honour him, honour me, honour you