The Point of Poetry

Before me they slump in their clumpy shoes,

stick haired purple lipped, and their eyes,

oh their eyes as if the moon had come

to set up housekeeping in them, shine up

at me not friendly, more with warm disdain

spoken by the sharpest eyed one of all

smacking gum, “so like what’s, you know,

the point of poetry?” She hits point really hard

so her eyes pop and all the light shoots out

into the dreary day bordered with new

pale blooms after a crushing storm still

running off. I want to run with it, run

down through all the little spaces

between the stepping stones and flattened plants,

run down the gullies and curbs, crevasses

and rivers into that great room of water

where I never have to defend art again

or myself, the questions too vast

for the time allotted. Stomach turning

like some grim leaf in a flood, I grow

into the person I’m supposed to be , the poet

who teaches, square my shoulders, speak.

“Poetry helps me go with the flow”

pleased to have the last word,

anxious for her first.

                                                  Perie Longo