to the poem with glue on its feet and a patch over its eye

by Brenda Morisse
Wild Poetry Forum
Second Place, November 2015
Judged by Barbara Siegel Carlson


you’re afraid of glare and unexpected steps
you can’t see even after the operations
you want another knitted poem to hide beneath
where you can dream the monotone voice
of my voice soothing your empty-headed twirling
when you grab a what’s-the-word-? at every rotation
where random consonants cozy up
to flattened vowels and the unexpected
syncopation bounces over our heads
and I say “You see?”

you worry about your chin sagging into the next page
how your character lines have deepened into the first skin and draft
you want your hair combed your dead ends tied up a little blush
to walk down an aisle and rhyme
you my dear poem are a silly bride flaunting curves on 4th street
“Look at me look at me before our worries erase us” you beg

you’re a dirty poem you refuse to wipe or mop or tidy up
you leave the panties where they drop insist that the coffee cup
sheds its life in the watermark on the desk
how the dust gathered around
the stillness of the pencil when we were blind


There’s a great sense of imagination, irony and intrigue in the way the speaker personifies the poem trying to find words for its real nature which it always eludes. The language is dynamic, playful and surprising, with shifting tones that capture the various attitudes the speaker has toward the poem. I especially love the ending in its contradictory turn and mystery. --Barbara Siegel Carlson