A ROOM OF INCOMPLETIONS

I know a place where nothing is finished:

where antique fountain pens by the hundreds

wait for their little nibs to be fastened on with precision

so they can ink-up empty pages with

ornate aphorisms and swirling witticisms;

where keyboards and computers hold in their ebony and ivory,

their hard drives and motherboards,

half-composed ballads and rock operas

that would put an avalanche

and the sound of rain to shame;

where lamps, in their final design, would lean

into indecision and doubt and turn on

like a parrot squawking the word spark;

where sculptures, myriad figures, bearing

the press of fingerprints in the brown of the clay,

are poised to receive the bold gestures they would make

if only their arms could find them.

I know this place like an orphanage,

like a room I rent,

like a part of myself I can’t know.

One day I will tunnel my way through

these incompletions like a convict

bursting through a cornfield

and there before me will be a river

waiting, weeping, smiling like a bride.