"Invisible Shelf" by Guy Biederman

“Invisible Shelf”

by Guy Biederman

We need places to put things.

We need names to call things.

We need to say what needs to be

said even if we don't know how to

say them, even if they don't need

to be said. So in the end I build an

invisible shelf, a shelf only I can see

where words don't fail, where rudimentary

skills don't mangle, where things I later wish

Ihadn't said, don't bruise or spoil. I can really

only do 2 things in this life, am doing one now,

building an invisible shelf where I can put how

I feel about you, so I can see with much love

what it's really about, what you mean to me

with no weirdness or misunderstanding or

wrong label. So if you were to find this poem

on the fiction shelf, or, this little fiction in poetry,

this avocado in the bin of tomatoes, this toothbrush

where aluminum foil should be, know that somewhere

in a market, in a bookstore, in a house that floats there's

an invisible shelf where sits how I feel about you and nothing,

nothing else. ~

October 21