Some poets ought not to be read unless there’s an adult in the house with you

All it takes is a poet like Charles Wright,
an obviously well-read and erudite man with quite a lot to say,
and any one of his poems from A Short History of the Shadow -
let’s imagine for the sake of a literary argument
...................................................................we might have chosen

IF THIS IS WHERE GOD’S AT, WHY IS THAT FISH DEAD –
read on a close, some might say stuffy while others choose oppressive,
December night not long after a massive electrical storm
...................................................................has passed overhead
leaving sulphurous tones in the atmosphere to challenge some senses

while playing quietly in the background of an almost empty apartment
The Tallis Scholars 25th Anniversary (Disc 2) fills what might be a void
..................................................................with Media Vita for 6 voices
(which I’ve taken to listening to quite a lot, these still surprising days)
and there, I think, you have it - not to put too fine a point on it;

the makings of a contemplative moment or two of introspection,
...................................................................self-reflection perhaps –
although some observers, sitting on one’s shoulder let’s further imagine,
might offer up less generous interpretations of a man’s late night ruminations
by choosing words such as self-indulgent, self-pitying or even morbid.

...................................................................But that’s for those others
to say. Now - nothing seems certain, not even the words one chooses.
But the night’s quiet has finally arrived because at one thirty-three a.m. suburban
trains no longer rattle along the tracks below the veranda window, wide-open
to let in as much of the still night’s air as the darkness will permit.
.........