If a Hole
If a hole were just a hole without a thing around it, who would know it was a hole and how would they have found it?
Kay Sage
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
If a hole were just a hole without a thing around it, who would know it was a hole and how would they have found it?
Here is a small riddle dressed up as a poem. Kay Sage asks us to imagine a hole with nothing around it, and then asks the obvious but strangely dizzying question: how would anyone ever know it was there? The answer the poem quietly points to is that they wouldn't. A hole only exists because of what surrounds it. Take away the edges, the wall, the ground, and absence has nothing to push against.
The speaker doesn't sound upset or dramatic. The tone is curious and a little playful, like someone turning a puzzle over in their hands. The short, broken lines, with "and how / would they / have found it?" dropping down the page one phrase at a time, make the thought feel slow and careful, as if each word is being tested. What's left is a quiet, slightly uncanny mood: emptiness can only be seen through the presence of other things, and the poem leaves you looking at gaps differently.