A Poem A Day
I challenged myself to write a poem a day,
to routinely step up to the gumball machine
and twist the nob to its terminus,
to lift the door and discover what is there-
Some blue metaphor or orange onomatopoeia.
You take what you can get.
Some days a poem will come right up to me
and eat from my hand, pose for a picture,
or stroll with me through the park.
Other poems are more playful.
They invite me into a flirtation, a romp
in which I am the "it" that chases and seeks.
Some poems are ghosts with a mercurial
sense of time. I feel them nearby, and hear
their noises in the next room. You feel them
as they are passing through.
A poem can also be an overheard bit
of conversation on a train that passes
so quickly and only startles me in retrospect,
and then I can only chase its broken pieces.
Which is better than the poem I have to fish for
with all of its preparation: selecting a spot,
baiting a hook, or in desperation, casting a net.
I prefer the poems that have been here all along,
the old clothes I've worn for years, that I've torn
and mended, and that have survived. I like
the way they smell and I remember every stain.
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