To The Poets

In our quest to tell it slant
we go too far and become
obtuse then wonder why
people don’t read poetry.
No one needs the cookies on
the lowest shelf where the
dogs can get them, but up
on the counter by the crystal
drinking glasses that were
a wedding gift, and that one
glass with a chip in the side
that you use every day and
fill with milk so cold it burns
your teeth but the burning is
an endurable goodness you’ve
learned to cherish as your days
grow shorter upon the earth.
 
 

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6 Comments

  1. Sue on May 23, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    You’re making us love poetry again and even believe that we might try our unpracticed hand. Yours is surely an endurable goodness ~ and more.

  2. Christie on May 23, 2013 at 1:42 pm

    Wonderful! Once upon a time, I wrote a doctoral dissertation on (obtuse) modernist and contemporary poetry, but I find that the poetry I’m still reading in my post-academic life is this chipped crystal poetry – the kind that offers immediate rewards but also rewards multiple readings.
    It probably goes without saying, but yours always makes that cut.
    Thank you.

  3. Amy K. Sorrells on May 23, 2013 at 3:35 pm

    What Christie said. Love it.

  4. Kiki Malone on May 23, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    I’m lactose intolerant. The milk metaphor is lost on me.

  5. Melinda Viergever Inman on May 24, 2013 at 12:33 am

    A poem on the counter where we can take a cool drink.

  6. Cathy K. on May 24, 2013 at 2:07 pm

    LIcking my milk mustache!

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