Nothing’s Really Poetry

Poetry feels like a number,
But it doesn’t behave like one.
Add or subtract every last thing

With poetry, and poetry
Is all you get, which doesn’t mean
There’s no difference in poetry,

That all poetry is equal.
Some poetry’s countable, some
Poetry’s not. Just partition

An uncountable poetry
Into an uncountable set
Of the countable poetries.

Employ something irrational
And then repeat, poetically.
See there? Two identical sets.

Poetry makes poetry, but
So, too, do many other things.
Some poets pretend the other

Created all their poetry.
Some poems pretend they’re purely poems.
It’s the nature of poetry

To make such nonsense possible.
Somewhere beyond comparison,
There’s a world where nothing’s greater

And nothing’s smaller than, either,
And in that world, and only there,
Is poetry impossible.