A Poem That Starts Out Wrong

Put nothing down to distress the reader. No barking dog. No rustle in the place whispers belong or photos of petals near collapse. Erase oranges of confusing taste, a face wrinkled or in pain, a map with waterless rivers or water without a bend, still in darkness. Here, where mystery beyond hope comes too near, make a bright flight of leaves descend, none to smear all our spotless rivers. A map folds and unfolds, does not bunch or wrinkle. Rainbows to last. The First Endlessness of Eden. This was the spot I was to start on, a leg steps out of the lake, a step falters instead into dashes that spread without prints onto the screaming bank.