This poem is taken from PN Review 6, Volume 5 Number 2, January - March 1979.

Nine Poems

Robert Wells

THE WILL

The will is an empty house.
You are free to enter.

It is the unlighted room,
The undusted floor.

Nothing awaits you there
But your own presence

And the petty tasks by which
You serve yourself.

IMPASSE

The attempt of youth
To vivify the inanimate-

Once it has been made,
The man will never tire

Of recalling, detail
By detail, the impasse

In which he would choose
To find himself again.
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