This is a required poem.
You do not have to read it now.
You can wait until
you’re dying if you want.
You have to
let go of everything.
You can start by
letting go of this poem. Just let it
go. Let it fall to the desk, skim
the edge, spill to the floor. Let it
lie on the floor face-down
so you can’t read it.
How to read this poem
when it’s lying on the floor face-down
like a body—
that is the seeming difficulty.
On one side
words are everything. On the other
nothing. On the other side
there is the poem on the other side saying
let it go on without you,
saying on the other side there’s nothing
as difficult as it seems.

Paul Hostovsky‘s poems appear widely online and in print. He has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. He has two poetry chapbooks, Bird in the Hand (Grayson Books) and Dusk Outside the Braille Press (Riverstone Press). To read more, visit Paul’s website: www.paulhostovsky.com.