Elissa Cottle

Permission to Write

You may take the rest of your life to write.
You may put everything beside it.
You may think about writing when you wake,
talk business of the day, lie down, make love. The writing
may be with you, beside anyone else who's there.
Every interaction may be examined.
Each person may be peeled, diced and reconstituted
into metaphor. You may metaphor yourself, part by part,
in each angle of the sun as it rises and sets.
You may let things grow as they may, grass, trees,
violets, dandelions. You may gently tell the house painter
he will cut your ivy over your dead body.
You may instruct him to paint carefully under those vines
clinging to your house. You may talk from your heart,
even to people who don't speak that language.
You may teach that language to those
who are not native speakers of the heart.
It is your first language.