This poem is about a rhyme.
It was written by a small white boy
at school, at lunchtime.
No. It is about a juniper tree
that breaks its branches against a wind
blasted from the blind
bomb of Hiroshima. A Japanese
woman wrote it. Or was it your mother
who wrote this poem
where all sounds echo as if
as if you read it, said it aloud around in a round,
like a nursery rhyme, a crime
that a prisoner wrote this poem
on the walls of his lifetime sentence?
who could blame him, his penitence
was far greater than his hunger
for more than crusts and water?
his lust for his daughter
made her crazy and mute
she spends her time in this poem
in the white space within words
and between the lines, the fine
hairline that keeps the words from spilling
out from the edge, this ricepaper page
that keeps this candy sweet poem fresh
the old Chinese man who wrote this poem
says you can eat the paper too
eat the words, lick
the ink and stick it on in an envelope
the postman may deliver this poem
without postage ? or he may take his poem hostage
a captive within his blue coated breast
the birds sang this poem
every morning out your childhood window
you hummed this poem in the shower
before you knew a melody
there was music
and you found this poem buried
in the black guitar case
of your body, a lyric from when you used to play
in the streets in the heat of the summer
the Spanish boys unscrewed the bolt of a hydrant
and wrote this poem with their bodies,
the rhythm of the water
bursting against their hot torsos
made them virtuosos, the sidewalk
is tattooed with the shadows
of tarot cards, stories of the two world wars
that your grandmother gave you, each labeled like her apple
jam jars with a poem, the shelf in your basement
practically a tome of her chickenscratch
handwriting, a single verse
that stretches from ceiling to floor
to the door that leads out of this poem
the rectangle opening that signals the end
of this bending line that I tried first
to draw straight -- but the poem
couldn't wait -- It's about time,
it tells me. It's about time.
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