A Walk with Virginia Woolf

—And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.

Every day I walk

by the river, kick rocks 

along the shore, muddy

my shoes. I don’t care.

I’ve had enough of pretense,

feel I could write these waves, 

my secret self all grey 

and turbid—they fill me 

with longing to know 

the rushing and forgetting 

of the past. How silly. 

What does it all mean? 

Why must I come

to forget my life and offer

my self up to the river

at dusk? Why must I 

be so hell-bent on walking

a shore of waves where I

am always nameless?