I will come back,
I will try again to talk to you.
I will pick up the flattened hope
that didn’t hold
against your first responses

I will reconfigure my platform.
No. Forget the platform. What I need here
is my center. That and yours, so my words
don’t wobble off, so our communication
doesn’t collapse. So my perception of you
is not distorted,  and my perception of me
is not inflated,
and I have no preconceptions at all
but am ready to learn.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 19, 2022