J.I. Kleinberg

Shape

To understand the shape of a thing,
draw with care what is not the thing:
the emptiness, the negative, the hollow
and shade. Reach your eyes
to the distance and near again
to gather all the not-ness.
Diagram the depths and layers
of what is absent until you
cannot avoid what is not missing

Smear

I should have licked the spoon
but instead smeared a trace
of honey on the edge of the cup,
my finger, the sink, and somehow
the floor, where a scatter of ants,
tiny and black, converge, as we must,
to taste a spot of sweetness.

Next Poem