Let’s say that a phrase can be agreed
upon, as with a handshake, sealed,
             as with a kiss,

no need to put pen to paper, to use
the old form our grandfathers used. I’d
              wanted to do

that here with you right now –treat words
as the sounds they once may have been
              and may not be

again, as long as we saw eye to eye
here on this page: it’s not for me to say,
              but you may guess

(for divination is your strength, not mine)
the stalwart confidence my lambent I
             once had in you.

Recent work by Bruce Robinson appears or is forthcoming in Mobius, Fourth River/Tributaries, Cleaver (Life as Activism), and South Florida Poetry Journal.