FOR RIMBAUD

Could it be, that from the start,
the thing he sought, this demon-angel,
was always just outside the page

That, after swimming the length of the alphabet,
with fine gills and deranged senses, he created
an opening for others but a trap for himself?

If so, then slipping through those watery bars
was an imperative, a chastened mysticism -
and freedom to write in the air: to be human