Stonewalled: The Poet As Culprit

--for Joe Hutchison, master sleuth

For years, I’d been trying
To trace the poem’s origins

And had come up against a blank
Wall every time: Where

Had I seen it before?

.

It must have been somewhere
In the recesses of what passes

Plausibly as my mind but the more
I looked, the less I saw

Until I saw nothing and then
I saw there was no need

Of any further investigation—
I had stolen the poem

From myself.