The table wobbles on three legs
and holds my coffee perfectly still.
A door hangs crooked in its frame,
opens easier than any plumb one will.
I limp a little, always left,
and find I cover more ground.
The song that haunts me most
is the one that never quite comes around.
Maybe tilted is its own kind of true,
a slant the level cannot read—
the way a tree bends toward the light
and calls that bending
how I breathe.
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125,025 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
It did take me a good few times reading this through to fully understand it! But I hope I understood it correctly?
The first things mentioned contradict each other yet still find balance, for example the crooked door, it works better than normal ones.
Despite being damaged it can handle everything just as good as any other door.
The table as well, it only has three legs but holds a mug perfectly despite all it's wobbling around.
And the song too, one that haunts, so I will guess that it is something negative? And that it never comes around means that it might not be played on the radio. So that despite how bad it is, it still isn't played, meaning it's perfect that way. Like the other things, despite being bad still end up working out. So if the lyrical "I" dislikes the song, it ends up working out because it's not played.
The only part I am not fully understanding is the end, but likely because I need more practice!
I am guessing that it similar to the others?
Either way, this is amazing, something I would expect to read out of an old litrature book from many years ago!
I enjoyed reading the poem a lot! Very well written and also thought through!
hiya, thank you 4 your reviews on 2 of my pieces! i once again cannot respond as thoughtfully as i would like 2 right now but, im glad you enjoyed the poem! ill write something up 4 both reviews the moment i find time!!
hey!! once again thank you 4 your review/s - you understood it really well and especially dug into the core of it!!
the contradiction-finding-balance reading is exactly right. the crooked door, the wobbly table - things that by every standard measure should be deficient, and yet they do what they're meant 2 do, sometimes better than the 'correct' version would.
on the song - that is an interesting interpretation and you were close 2 my intention in writing it, though it is slightly different. the song that never quite comes around isn't necessarily a bad song - it's a song that haunts because it never fully resolves, if that makes sense. it's like,,, imagine a melody that keeps circling back toward its own ending and never quite arrives there. it doesn't complete itself, and that incompletion is what makes it linger, what makes it haunt. so my intent with it wasn't that the song is bad and it's good it isn't played - it's that the song is beautiful precisely because it stays unfinished. some things that are incomplete have a particular kind of hold over us that finished things don't is what the speaker means.
and the ending - you're right that it follows the same logic as the rest!! the tree bends toward the light not because something's wrong with it, but because that's simply how it grows, how it survives, and how it perseveres. the speaker is saying that their own bending - their own asymmetry, their own imperfection - is just how they breathe. not a flaw 2 overcome. just the shape of how they're alive.
THANKYOU VERY MUCH AGAIN!!!!
This is genuinely good. Like actually good. Not “cute poem good.” It’s smart. The idea is simple, but the way you use it? Clean. The table, the door, the limp it’s not trying to be dramatic, and that’s what makes it work. It just states things and trusts the reader to get it. That’s confidence.
The line about the table holding the coffee perfectly still is so satisfying. It flips expectations in a way that feels clever but not try-hard. And the tree bending toward the light? That’s a strong ending. It ties everything together in a way that feels natural, not forced.
Also, the message is clear: being slightly off doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It can actually mean you’re adaptable. That’s a solid idea. And you deliver it without overexplaining, which I respect a lot. That restraint makes it feel sharp.
thanks!
Maybe it's because I'm listening to ambient music rn but this feels very surrealist in tone and visuals. Crooked doors, songs that never quite sit right, "maybe tilted is its own kind of true"; cool line. Nothing like phototropisms to question your reality, hehe
hi, thank you 4 your review
the surrealist reading is really interesting because i wasn't consciously going there, but i don't think you're wrong at all! there's something about the logic of the poem that i suppose /does/ sit a little sideways so i can see how it'd feel that way - what i was really sitting with was this idea that the things that are technically off somehow function better /because/ of it, not in spite of it.
that tilted truth line traces back 2 dickinson's "tell all the truth but tell it slant", that line has lived in my head 4 a long time and i suppose it found its way (or home, 1 of either) in here, after a lot of toying with the concept mentally. maybe the surreal and that kind of quietly tilted truth aren't so far apart after all
This writing honestly opened up a whole perspective for me. The message I get from the first half of the poem is that we focus so much on the negative effects of a flaw, yet something with imperfections can be just as good if not better. “Maybe tilted is its own kind of true, a slant the level cannot read—” The author points out a very complicated possibility. Maybe we just don’t understand, maybe our perception is too limited for us to see truths in what we call lies. Overall a great poem that could be interpreted more than just the way I have which makes it very good for the audience. It allows them to a find a deeper meaning within a meaning. No complaints about grammar or spelling, and I’m excited to see what else you have in store.
thank you 4 unpacking it this way, really lovely 2 read
your comment of our perception perhaps being too limited 4 us 2 see truths in what we call lies is EXACTLY the territory the poem is in, and you named it really well. the level can't read the slant not because the slant is wrong, but because the level was built 4 something else entirely.
like i mentioned in another reply, this traces back 2 dickinson's "tell all the truth but tell it slant", which explores the idea that truth delivered too directly is almost too much 4 us 2 hold, so it has 2 come in sideways, at an angle, through (here, at least) a wobbly table or a crooked door. i suppose the slant isn't a compromise in that regard, but the only way the truth can actually reach you reasonably.
This writing honestly opened up a whole perspective for me. The message I get from the first half of the poem is that we focus so much on the negative effects of a flaw, yet something with imperfections can be just as good if not better. “Maybe tilted is its own kind of true, a slant the level cannot read—” The author points out a very complicated possibility. Maybe we just don’t understand, maybe our perception is too limited for us to see truths in what we call lies. Overall a great poem that could be interpreted more than just the way I have which makes it very good for the audience. It allows them to a find a deeper meaning within a meaning. No complaints about grammar or spelling, and I’m excited to see what else you have in store.