Le moi, c’est les autres

Et le mot, c’est le moi—
Le moi et la chose.
So hold me close and sing.

Ah, poetry! Your origins
In tribal gloats and taunts,
Epic self-glorifications,

Give you away even today,
Even in the enclosed lyrics
Of personal lives at play,

The gang still lingers, the old ghosts
Are still there, the little words
That say, You! Come here! You!

Go away! And the self sits
Twitching in the middle, neither
Quite the boast nor ghost,

Neither exactly you nor me,
A bit of name, a piece of thing,
A nervous flutter. It sings.