How to Make Mistakes

by David Winter

Don't do it the way you did
the last time. Inspect each bone
holding you upright. Remove
the most shapely one. Notice
its absence from your body
as you dance. Don't do what
you did before you were born.
No number of warm assurances
will protect you from sharp joy
or its precursor, a shadow
whose touch tints your cheeks
scarlet. Don't do it the way
you were told more than once.
Trust in your oracular organs,
so often silenced by facts.
Don't do it as these words
instruct. They are the silt
of a lived river, unheard
proverbs worn hollow by use,
a careful composition sung
in entirely the wrong key.

One of David Winter's poems recently appeared in Feast of Fools: Poems, Stories, and Essays on Sacred Fools and Tricksters (Sacred Fools Press, 2010) and another is forthcoming in The Shop. In February he will begin leading a writing workshop for gay elders through New York Writers Coalition. He would love to hear from you at dvdwntr@gmail.com.