New Old Hat

[Leanne]

I love words but I stopped reading
about two years ago when my eyes altogether -- altogether seems unnecessary
stopped finding joy in it. Late nights by a hallway’s glow after family went to bed -- it is odd that you miss out either article or possessive before "family" when the rest of the poem has fairly solid sentence structure
or in college or at any time in my life at any time of the day
are now memories included in The Life I Had which truth be told -- comma after "had" would break up the breathlessness, which is effective prior to that but becomes too much
is comprised mainly of troubled working parts I abandon with great relief. -- personally I would put "mainly comprised" but if that's how you'd say it, then leave it alone

I once had a favorite book but have no idea if it would now befit – -- "befit" just doesn't seem the right word -- I actually think if you removed "but have no idea it would now befit" entirely, it wouldn't hurt as this is implied in the next few lines -- to make that work you'd have to remove "while it" on the next line though
while it for so long encompassed the whole of me I no longer know
that it could anymore or which new story might. To simply listen
still robs the grit of lines embossed into a page; their shape and span and ink -- gorgeous descriptive phrasing
made as much a story as the words they built. Whether or not, even,
there was a serif made the personality of each letter
as they appeared on a stage with curtains scalloped in the center . -- and a terrific set of metaphors -- this is the stanza that saves your poem from the pitfalls of prose and lifts it to rather more spectacular heights

I love painting but my vision burns the edges or middle off
details in the whole when I stand back to scrutinize its details. I cannot trust -- two uses of "details" in one line is one too many
my hands with the curves of a body or especially the fine grout in an eyelid.
I love walking but every proper or misstep fires from groin through thighs and
I love sleeping but do so now best in smaller increments during certain times and
I love swallowing and I love having an even pulse and I love
thinking outside the fog of frayed axons and I love
remembering and I love
I love I love
silver linings. I love knowing
why it is
I have become so very, very good at falling. -- normally I'd go a bit crazy at the idea of so many loves and verys in such a short space of time, but here the simplicity of it all seems to work. This is because the introspective depth of the preceding stanzas gives a very solid background for this last, despairing but hopeful stanza. It's as if you're saying "yes world, I can appreciate and savour your complexity -- but even more I can appreciate being here to savour it".