Nor Are You Them

Language mandates that to explain
To yourself, and only yourself,
Your syntax suggests that you are
Explaining things to someone else.

So you talk or write to yourself
As if someone else attentive
Were there for your explanations—
A delusion or arrogance,

Which makes you keep your voice quiet
And your gestures small, since you are,
After all, a social creature,
And vulnerable to mocking,

Or, worse, moral accusations.
You envy mathematicians
And musicians, who can explain
Through their respective notations

Without seeming to scold the air,
But you only work through language,
And language has forms of address,
Which you use, although they’re not you.