In making we can miss and see it clearly.

Yet nothing stays of aiming once we miss.

That is, unless the thing clicks into crystal, all the force

it took to try remains obscured. And making gone

is marked by ash that can’t resemble

how a flicker of invention burned in gold

when it began. Also that each failure differs

from the one before so as we scoop them into palms

to turn each lesson over singly

we become not indestructible nor prepared.

I brought this worry to a teacher just tonight

and she—who typically speaks loudly—

softened in the low-lit office saying

include ALL that works and loosen

what destroys you. In that light I loved her

for her gentleness and basking in it

vaguely saw a generosity emerge

inside the pocket where invention waits. In childhood

there was another teacher I remember

by recalling some particulars: a sound—

keys that jangled at his hip, the way his face

changed when his lunch was interrupted,

that it seemed sometimes he could not look

you in the eye and others lit you chosen, smiling.

Perhaps the marks remain not from a singular

magic, but because I was a girl. Still, intertwined

and captive in the writing I trace circles

toward the truth, knowing the task

to be impossible, that writing history alone

can never capture any edge. And yet

into my body it is written whole, in gratitude

that rises forth before the gentle, transparent woman.

Growing calm and separate

I think how lovely the rift—

wide and clear between us.