For a Woman Who Thinks Poetry is Redundant
©1992 by Sam Mills
From his Book: Burning the Stratocaster
Sleeping Buddha Press, 1992

How to convince you otherwise?
As we live with the redundant world,
following the old path among all the similar stars,
redundancy is merely not seeing clearly through,
not watching long enough,
not using the better word.
My task is to show alternate designs
for the same pattern.

Take your pearl earrings, for example.
They look the same.
Set on redundant earlobes, one on each side,
like every other. Now look closer.
Notice the differing sheen of each pearl,
brought from the singular interior of the shell
to your ears, both which differ in the small ways.
Small ways to explain a vast difference.

Look closer. If I say "love"
look closer and you will notice
the slightest change in my voice.
It is different from the first time I told you,
it is different from the next time I will tell you,
because you and I change
within the pattern of day and night.

We change, and we would not notice it,
as we don't notice a clock change
from the circular path unless we are this close
and take time to notice the leap year
hidden in the clock, the small leap in our bodies,
the irregular, unique and invaluable redundancy
when we touch each other's similar imperfections.

Imperfect, luminous spheres from a sea
that only looks redundant from the surface.
Love goes beneath and finds the exceptional.
Look closer.

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