Robert Creeley




For Fear

For fear I want
to make myself again
under the thumb 
for old love, old time

subservience
and pain, bent
into a nail that will
not come out.

Why, love, does it
make such a difference
not to be heard 
in spite of self

or what we may feel,
one for the other, but as a hammer
to drive again

bent nail
into old hurt?