Revisionist Poetry – Where the poem hides, v4. – a Darker, with a coffee ring version

Where the poem hides

The binding cradles the pages—
waiting to be filled. A coffee ring
blooms at the margin, brown and patient.

Like a sculptor, I believe
the medium can hold the art;
but stains are maps of small betrayals,
old weather pressed into paper.

Study the lines and textures;
the surface keeps its secrets. The ring knows
the lateness of hands, the small relentings.

Only impulse distracts—then rips;
the poem leaves the page and the stain remains,
an elegy for what the maker spilled.

Effect: the coffee ring deepens the conceit by insisting on human fallibility and time — it grounds the poem in lived traces and makes the “hiding” feel frailer and more mortal.