“If I Say” is about the hard words “I Love you”. As Charles Bukowski wrote in his poem “Confession” – “….the hard words I ever feared to say….”. It’s about beginnings and endings and about poetry itself and what it means. I’ve always thought of a poem as a beginning, as Walt Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself” – “Beginning my studies the first step pleased me so much, ….. I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any further, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs”. What I’ve always sort in poetry is truth. The style of writing, or the “beauty” of the poem itself, means nothing to me. Only the beauty to be found within the words.
                  The poem is about moving from poetry to prose. From the beginning to what’s next. All done by the words “I Love you”, if those words are said. It’s about the potential of words and their impact on our lives.