Undid in the Land of Undone

All the things I wanted to do and didn't
took so long.
It was years of not doing.

You can make an allusion here to Penelope,
if you want.
See her up there in that high room undoing her art?

But enough about what she didn't do —
not doing
was what she did. Plucking out

the thread of intimacy in the frame.
If I got to
know you that would be
— something. So let's make a toast to the long art
of lingering.
We say the cake is done,

but what exactly did the cake do?
The things undid
in the land of undone call to us

in the flames. What I didn't do took
an eternity —
and it wasn't for lack of trying.

Copyright © 2006 Lee Upton All rights reserved
from New England Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission