Poetry like
a fierce violin or
a gunshot and then silence.

Poetry like
an atomic bomb
inside of the skull
-blinding,
incinerating.

Poetry that
like a night river
takes you with it
wherever it may go.

Poetry that
after you let it in
never leaves.

Poetry
that will make you abandon God
leave your wife and kids at the airport
steal.

Poetry that will make you
rich
with madness.

Where is it?
Where is it?

It’s definitely not in this salad.

It’s not down the fire escape or
under the sink.

It’s not in your flatulent rhetoric.

No, no, no…

It’s in a child’s pencil.
It’s in her laughter at the station.
It’s in the myriad shapes
of the breaking waves at dawn.
It’s in the lilies and the lawnmowers.

It’s in the way we always
fall apart after the miracle
of coming together.

It’s in the defeated posture of
a torn curbside recliner.

It’s nowhere
but everywhere.

I never tire of finding it.
I’m always looking.

Lost and found and
lost again.

Like me.