unBECOMING

i am un
(becoming) —not the
lady in pearls who
swallowed her mirror
whole,
but the grassblade
pushing through sidewalk
cracks,
anonymous,
unadorned,
a nobody! who are you?
are you nobody too?

then there’s a pair of us—
don’t tell!

they’d banish us, you know:
the somebodies, croaking
names in the bog of
june, public as frogs,
droning their i ams
till the air
thickens with self.

O to unbecome!
—to shed this husk
of shoulds and musts,
the corset of custom
laced tight by eyes
that never saw
the atom in me
as good as the atom
in you—
walt, you contain
enough, why don’t
you let it out then?
speech is the twin
of vision, unequal
to measure itself,
but i, i celebrate
not the self that’s built,
but the self that’s
unraveling,
thread by thread,
a kosmos of unravelings.

i cannot see my soul but know ’tis there
(a narrow fellow in the grass
occasionally rides—)
the body grows without—
afraid to own a body,
i put it from me—
like a woolen mitten
in summer, or the
wife who lays her
plaything unmentioned
in the corner of a drawer.

success is counted sweetest
by those who ne’er succeed—
so unbecoming is the sweetest
by those who ne’er were some
body at all.

you shall above all things
be glad and young
for if you’re young,
whatever life you wear
it will become you;
and if you are glad
whatever’s living
will yourself become.

but i? i am the dangerous
looseness of doom,
finding it unbecoming—
we can never be born
enough, you and i,
human beings for whom
birth is the mystery
of growing: which happens
only when we are faithful
to our unselves.

O the past and present wilt—
i have fill’d them,
emptied them,
and now i unbecome
the bard of personality,
pressing the pulse
of the life that has seldom
exhibited itself—
the great unbecoming
of man in himself.
i pass death with the dying
and birth with the new-wash’d babe,
not contain’d between
hat and boots,
but spilling out,
a transparent eyeball
seeing all,
nothing.

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my unbecoming)
for whatever we lose
(like a you or a me)
it’s always our self we find
in the sea—
the blond absence of any program
except last and always
and first to live
makes unimportant
what i and you believe.
love’s to giving as to keeping’s give;
as yes is to if,
unbecoming is to yes.

O i am large, i contain
multitudes—of nobodies,
of unravelings,
of grassblades and frogs
and the dangerous looseness
we wear like doom,
becoming.
un
(becoming) the endless
song of my
self—
un
done.

:: 01.22.2026 ::