Undid In The Land Of Undone

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.

If I got to

know you that would be

— something. 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.

Lee Upton

New England Review

Volume 27, Number 1 / 2006