A Healing Word

In writing now--as catharsis,

I read the blankness of a stare into a mirror

as currents of malice, unease, mockery,

extend the stare as greeting, resentment, defense,

regard the mirror as boast, testament, tether.

I have no truth, no advice.

I refuse the necessity for proofs or polemics.

Vanity reshapes any question into my answer.

I follow the compression of a line

to civil war Spain, to the blues,

to the snare of free association.

If I lose the line of curative logic,

in revising, if I forget my point,

I sacrifice sense for image,

image for rhythm,

image and rhythm for neatly coded curse.

I make closure a demand.