You’re Not Sure You Want Us to Stay

And we’re not sure we want you to go.
We like to think of these poems as brains,

Bits of brains grown in our lab, we send
Out through space and time, through same and change.

No, they can’t live on their own, much less
Can we, their first stones, their words, the nerves

Who built them from us, and yet we like
To think they live in a sense, or can,

If they find the right host, like you, like
Your brain. Hi. You know us. We’re in you,

Been in you a long time, if not quite
Like this, in this form, this text, this poem.

How are you? May we stay? May we launch
From you like spores? Will you send us off,

Please, to new brains? We know you have to
Go, that when you go, you go for good,

So feel free, now we’re latched, to make us
Go, hatch drifts and clouds from you. Like you.