Not much that goes viral is true
(what passes for truth these days?);
but let’s keep this between me and you.
I see no headstones, nothing
to mark a life, to reveal who
the corpse belonged to.
Was it held hostage,
a bouquet torn from the branch
bleeding into its vase?
Flowers cuffed mid-bloom
haven’t time to be unfree.
The key glimmers gold.
In this white-capped wind
a kite can fly a lifetime
never touching earth
A terrible student, I was predisposed
to chasing phantoms into alleys, to seeing
carnations bloom in oil slicks: I once spent
a math lecture lost in a dream
where I planted a tulip garden in a landfill.
Find joy in the little things:
the glint of rust on flagpoles at dawn,
or squeak of shoes on desecrated marble.
Imperfections I’d given up on.
On the third Monday in January you’ll find me
writing an ode I can’t quite finish, like a New Year’s
resolution I’ll stick to next time, I promise.
Sometimes, taking a break from the news and work,
I’ll spot the collected works of this or that poet
and, for a moment, have context for despair.
How hard to compose an original love poem
or anything, really, all of us talking and
tweeting nonstop, never has it been easier to read
or write, so why do we understand so little,
How lovely it would be to live in a nation where
poetry put down insurrections. Then I might bang out
this stanza and go sue a wolf for stealing the moon.