How To Read Another Poet's Poem

how to read another poet's poem:
carefully, as if a world hung in the balance:
sapphire, suspended.

as if you were the wind
turning the page.
without rage, animosity

the hidden sharpened knives.
simply, as if you were a child
learning letters one by one

by blocks of the red and green
in a land without clocks and
in, if possible, impossible:

the fairy tale's gleam

mary angela douglas 5 april 2016