Undid in the Land of Undone
____________________________________

All the things I wanted to do and didn’t
took so long.
It was years of not doing.

You can make an allusion here to Penelope,
if you want.
See her up there in that high room undoing her art?

But enough about what she didn’t do—
not doing
was what she did. Plucking out

the thread of intimacy in the frame.
So let’s make a toast to the long art
of lingering. We say the cake is done,

but what exactly did the cake do?
The things undid
in the land of undone call to us

in the flames. What I didn’t do took
an eternity—
and it wasn’t for lack of trying.

 

 

From Undid in the Land of Undone by Lee Upton, 2007

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
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