If I Could Write

If I could write
the best poem ever written,
it wouldn’t be carved in stone
or read aloud to thunder.

It would be quiet—
just your name
folded into a line
only you would notice.

It would know
how your hands shook
the day you held someone
who didn’t stay,
how you once cried
into the collar of your coat
so no one would see.

It would smell like old paper,
taste like mint on your wrist,
feel like a dog pressing its weight
into the silence of your knees.

The best poem
wouldn’t try to be perfect.
It would listen.
It would wait.
It would find you
just before sleep,
when the light is soft
and your defences are down,
and say:

you are already
the line I was trying to write.

Ryan Stone