How I Like My Poems

From a prompt by Laura Yes Yes…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i like my poems
like i like
my people:

twisty.

ready to back water
when necessary if the stream’s
strong and running
in circles. 

contrary
as a summer storm
in the hours after the heat’s
gone down, way down.

with perfect eyes.

with stented hearts
nonetheless faithfully
pounding their red burden
of oxygen and waste
around and around.

i like my poems like i like
my men, my women,
my children, my badger gods
burrowing flat and angry,
my beggars and socialites
sticking out in the city’s gray,
my farmer beloved of his crops,
my low tide waiting to rise:

slotted to go one way,
going another, snarling
or tranquil in turns,
staring into the dark
of crematory urns
and blowing the ashes into motion
as each word works past their lips
and stirs the past into the future.

i like my poems, your poems,
any poems by anyone,

to be the sex they choose to be,
to gender at will and to change their minds
without betraying their nature,
in fact to change their minds is to obey their nature
and if i falter before them,
if i am startled at how they turn,

i like them all the more.