“You know the failing of the sign is in itself a sign.”
–Anne Carson, translating Sophocles
too soon one starts to believe
that what one has imagined
has manifested into truth,
while the delusional armor
one has donned to protect
against the daily onslaught
of the mundane and trivial
becomes one’s living tomb
the measure of failure is not
the measure of failure’s success
not to be measured, but what
it attempted to be: the risk
evaporates into absence
without love’s completion
(January 13, 2015)
subtext 