Commonplace F26

Pinning Poems

By Tom Meyer

I chase after poems like butterflies

with my pen as a net and the poem just a glint streaking across a bluebird sky, I scribble its landing on a page.

The p o e m sits still.

While I read, write, and admire the saturated orange, black, and white flecked wings, I wall off doubts. I sing the poem fast, but it’s already different. New words wind themselves around first words and moth-eaten metaphors obscure precision.

The hope of a poem, barely alive, flutters away. And I thought I could pin its wings and classify what I saw and felt in my garden.

Instead I surrender.

HVWP COMMONPLACE 13

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