“
A poem is a windy city, has broad shoulders
and insistent industry,
barrels into your brain, sticking
its steam-filled, swarmy head
into the delicate, empty bird cages
propped in the rooms of your imagination.
A poem can be rude, downright ignorant
of what you had been thinking about
and holding onto for too much of the day.
More than a city, a poem pushes its hemispheres
against your thoughts, knocking them out
of the windows of your ears.
Every good poem screams, 'Read me
because you're going to die someday!
”
”
B.J. Ward (Jackleg Opera: Collected Poems, 1990 to 2013 (Io Poetry Series Book 7))