Least Said Poem by Olena Kalytiak Davis

Maybe we you us
But not everyone except
Everyone else seemingly set
One could romanticize the shipbells
Out of somebody else's grocery, sex shopping, life cleaning, bills
Of sail. When they had fresh grapefruit it was nothing like you not having
Scurvy, with or without the vodka. Your friends
Did they still say things (?) and the masses—
No, one didn't want to picture that vast
Writhing. Self-love is better left to this selective peculiar:
One shelf over, top shelf. The yeats, the years, none of it
More real than this. The judgment, the particular partings:
Reading a new yorker article about you. Reading. An article.
A small monster at my toe. There was once a long lusty list but
The only thing s/he had on me was feet. I went to course, to game, to
College. The epiphany was not worth dwelling (placement word of
Your choice here). Not to speak of, or the her, him, him before him, your last
Lover but, 'seeing someone else right now'? Mostly, the possessive pronoun
'Her' in the next clause. Whose unfairness? Be spoken and be longing.
(An embarrassment of melons and heavily salted meats.)
The thing you will miss was being sexy, you will forget that you went
Forgetting all along; the whole ride. Going, going. Not coming. Reading,
Too closely, will fail my the measure of some treasure
You believe exists, but how? Morning was the only mooring: feeling,
Thinking, seeing no one. Right
Now. Or now. Barely tolerated, living.