the best poems rattle
like a tin can down an empty street
they hang from lamp-posts in the dark
heads shaven
tar holding feathers
from some exotic bird
the best poems hitch a ride home
at 2 a.m.
belly full of beer
heel missing from one shoe
and not aware they are limping
then they sit up til dawn
in a dim kitchen with a stove full of ash
and a saucer full of butts
the best poems grow in a swamp
and never leave
they live and die there
amidst the sludge and marigolds
the cotton grass sedge and meadowsweet
making the ruts of logging trucks look pretty
the best poems
are empty ships riding high on the horizon
melding into a bank of rain
they are over-looked
never written
never forgotten
like the sex that ends childhood
