Of Others – a poem by Dan Campion

Of Others


some put in what I would leave out, the rest
leave out the things that I put in. You’ll get,
I promise you, no sins gone unconfessed,
no propaganda, homily, or bet
on how to get to heaven—nor to win
a two-way trip to hell to see the sights.
You might imagine me on onionskin,
your own verse reading through beneath stray lines;
it’s only my faint marks upon the page
that let you see your own words quite so clear,
and even listen as their tones assuage
your pain. But you’re unhurt? Then have no fear.
I’ll merely dot your i’s and cross your t’s.
I wish to put you perfectly at ease.

Dan Campion‘s poems have appeared previously in Amethyst Review and in Light, Poetry, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. He is the author of Peter De Vries and Surrealism (Bucknell University Press) and coeditor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song (Holy Cow! Press). A selection of his poems was issued by the Ice Cube Press in July 2022: https://icecubepress.com/2021/10/01/a-playbill-for-sunset/