Et Super Te

[matsunosuperfan]

Et Super Te
 
Morning and the gulls cry
sidewalks glistened with early rain
the mood maudlin
amidst the joy.  You’ve found
you become a place
and a place becomes you
the leaving more a resection
the scalpel wielded willingly
inevitably the hand shakes
and a piece is left behind
but a piece is also taken
 
Go and grieve
remember the joy

I was with you until the last four lines when we inexplicably collapse into the language of cliche and the aphoristic commonplace

before that I am motivated enough by the restrained imagery and the kind of quiet sage declarative voice thing this speaker has got going on. still I fear the poem is dangerously close to not having enough specific to say. first two lines are well executed but nothing terribly particular is yet being described. L3 and L4 are pure abstract editorial. "you become... becomes you" is an interesting musing and nice use of chiasmus, I find that the heart of the poem and might consider developing that concern more prominently in the figuration. the discourse that follows about scalpels and shaking hands isn't enough to satisfy me as it feels like a fragment of a fragment, where the poem structurally seems to suggest we will receive some kind of wisdom. a summation that makes you go "ah, true!" but this is so vague that I can't really bring myself to do that. 

so last votes from me:
-compelling seed with "you become a place and a place becomes you," which is itself a cliche-adjacent musing but nonetheless one I'm interested in 
-opening lines might work but also might be a little too common 
-overall too much generality and unattached abstract feeling; "what are we even talking about, where are we even" 
-final couplet has to go, dogg