"Advice" by Marti Mihalyi

Advice
                for my creative writing class

 Take this paper from my hand,
offering.  It is blue and not
unlike the lake it might have
sailed out on. Sometimes this paper
wants. Wants to be sky or sorrow
or the vein along your temple,
a voice so quiet it is always

your name. This paper wants.
It wants to be a river—
the Danube. Wants to be a song.
It wants too much sometimes.
You cannot

give this paper everything.
It is too small anyway. But it is
waiting, is listening for the weight

of your hand across it. Be
for this paper something, some
grace, a face in the doorway

to bring it home. Be for this paper
the rain that loves dust and falls
through the blue not knowing
what will welcome it. If anything.
Be like the rain.

Marti Mihalyi