It Snatches from You Something

If a poem by the unknown

To you beforehand Murai,

Published thirty years ago

And then some, happened to fall

Over your email transom,

Would the unnecessary

Start cleaning itself? Would you

Dive headfirst into code mind,

The name Murai in your teeth?

Wikipedia, nothing.

Goodreads, Amazon, nothing.

Poetry Foundation, nope.

Maybe this Murai never

Won awards or published books.

Maybe Murai never wrote

Another poem after this

Nearly perfect one, a shoe

Full of water, hand in lap,

Curl of smoke high in the sky.

Three fine poems in one issue

Of Paris Review in spring,

One most unnecessary,

Original as murder.

And then what? What before then?

Three more poems, two years before

In Columbia Review.

Student zine. Columbia

College of Chicago. Wait—

A memorial written

In a blog around aught eight

For someone else, a poet

Who had had the same teacher,

Here mentions Murai, also

A Columbia College

Student, in a list of names

Of poets anthologized—

Under 35: The New

Generation of Poets.

Would you remember that book

Which sat on your shelves decades

After you bought it brand new,

Under 35 yourself

And then lost interest in it?

This same Murai was in there,

But not that you could recall.

The book went to a thrift shop.

Whatever it is, it won’t

Let us in. It folds inside

Itself like a dying star.

Murai wrote that, regardless

Of whether Murai wrote more.