My Treatment of You is Far Worse
Supposing that you wrote a new computer tongue,
String codes, a new computer language, whole,
From start to finish new, completely strung
Out like a spider’s web from you, its scroll
From nowhere else but from your mind—and you
Then turned to me to get the praise you need
For such a feat, what you would get in lieu
Of adoration would cause brain to bleed
In feeling and in thought. I wouldn’t know
One thing to say. No. Stop. I couldn’t find
One clue about it all. You couldn’t show
Me how to read it. I would be blank blind.
And yet I want you to enjoy my verse,
And you, well, you must think that that’s a curse.
~ Phillip Whidden