On Reading a Poem

Take this poem.
Put it somewhere.
Don’t even read it
or read it if you wish.
Then put it in a box
or a drawer, the closet or a niche
with your medals, shouts
runs across the world
a marriage or two, a child, maybe three.
Let the poem lie there
getting yellow at the edges and stiff
so it doesn’t look like a poem
or anything else in particular besides old
and hard to follow and go
on with your own particular
parachute, war or door to Paradise.
Then someday when it rains
or the neighbor mows
the lawn or your wife
just sent out for pizza
or the stars shift across the deep black sky
Pull out this poem.
See what it says.