The Thing It Brings

Yet another head floats by –
as if to dignify the resolute
irresolution it’s determined
to apply: to fly as if it knew
the only way to know were
to personify: portray, in air,
today, the subtle way intransigent

uncertainty persists in seasoning
each thought: it is not doubt,
this floating head: no, it embodies
some much softer dread –
a private caution, half-refusal, half-
demurral in the face of going on.
But it goes on: look, here it comes!

Something in it not quite numbs:
stirs behind its fixed expression:
covert alarm exerts a sort of charm –
an ambiguity which almost
comforts as it stings. There is
no understanding possible
without the thing it brings.

.