Poetry’s Problem

So it’s not

music. So it wants

to sing and can’t. So it’s

not a Klimt that

takes your breath before

you blink. Don’t you have to get

it before you get it? How,

at the starting gate,

can you tell if it’s a long

suffering memoir, flash

fiction fantasy, leftist political

diatribe, or the minimalist deep

image moment when moonlight hits

dew on the rail just

before daybreak? Doesn’t it only

transform when

it strikes the just

so chord along the sound

board of my crooked spine. It

has to remind me her eyes

flashed with a green that was worth

the heartbreak of loving her, no matter

it ended badly outside a garage

studio in an electric storm.