I don’t go looking for poetry. Poetry comes at me hot.
When I’m cornered in a chute with no excuse, nowhere to go, like
when I’m trapped in the entry way of a closed mall on a rainy Saturday. Then I pull out Walt’s Leaves or Frank’s Lunch
from my pocket where I’ve been carrying it around for weeks because I should
and because it fits into my coat pocket and because the cover is soft enough
that I don’t mind raking my hand across it when I’m reaching for my gloves.
I pull it out and it grins its hot grin at me and dares me
to open it, which I don’t want to do, but I do it anyway and words come
spilling out all over me like hot coffee.
The sound of them hurts my eardrums.
It is like a branding iron that ties me to itself and singes
me good with its marks. It burns words into me so that I can’t not think about
them and it leaves them burning in my arms and back and even though I can’t see
the burns, I can feel them. They say themselves
over and over in my head.
They hurt me until I take off that poetry coat and hang it
up in some closet and forget it.
But Walt is waiting for cold weather or rain or the next
time I get a ride somewhere. He’s been
waiting a long time but I guess he doesn’t mind waiting.
LFM
