when I read your poem
i want to write
i want to never write again

when i read your poem
i want to live
i want to never live again
as i have been living
i want to die
and begin again

when i read your poem
i want to be
a better man
i want to be a scholar
a poet
a painter
i want to make a mark
worth making
on the history of man

it is not that i
have been asleep
not the way
you sleep in a bed

but when i read your poem
i wake

a part of me
long frozen in the dark
wakes

as if a light
were suddenly put on
in a forgotten room
of my soul