OH NO

Because past the angel at the gate, oh can turn like that, go under, straight into poetry.

Here’s the god’s honest: a moment of calm recently came to me, so close to sleep it was sleep. In my dream I saw a girl whose dark t-shirt read: All is Failure. Except “failure” was misspelled—part of the dream too—either “far-lure” or “fear-lure.” The words still blur. But thank you, whatever sent that.

Because now I accept far or fear as the real F words, both part of lure and—most of all—that F as failure, as in all is failure, a triumph. I handsdown love that, everything made of failure, triggered first by failure, seen in its light, built—at least poetry often is—by one first failed turn of phrase after another, stanza and more stanzas in a standing pool of white space until a serious full draft lies there flat. Failure as blank check and ice floe into inner space. Is this what it is to see clearly?

When Sylvia Plath wrote her poem “Poppies in July” in the brilliant frightening throes of her last year on the planet, it underwent surgery, a