Ghost
by Frank Bidart
You must not think what I have
accomplished through you
could have been accomplished by any other means.
Each of us is to himself
indelible. I had to become that which could not
be, by time, from human memory, erased.
I had to burn my hungry, unappeasable
furious spirit
so inconsolably into you
you would without cease
write to bring me rest.
Bring us rest. Guilt is fecund. I knew
nothing I made
myself had enough steel in it to survive.
I tried: I made beautiful
paintings, beautiful poems. Fluff. Garbage.
The inextricability of love and hate?
If I had merely made you
love me you could not have saved me.
Copyright 2018 by Frank Bidart. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 22, 2018 by Academy of American Poets.
Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.