An exercise on futility

Then why did we worship clarity,
to speak, in the end, only each other's names?
- Louise Gluck

I teach myself the mechanics
of blankness:
I put my hand over the page
where I have written down the letters
of your name
as if it were your face--

a caress over
nothing. To undo

the deed, I erase
your face. But the heart
is a trickster, and

evenings make it twice
as difficult. The lights are never bright
enough for me to see
it is not your face I am erasing
but my own clumsy handwriting.

Teach me how to make sense.