Let Me Count the Waves

We must not look for poetry in poems. —Donald Revell You must not skirt the issue wearing skirts. You must not duck the bullet using ducks. You must not face the music with your face. Headbutting, don’t use your head. Or your butt. You must not use a house to build a home, and never look for poetry in poems. In fact, inject giraffes into your poems. Let loose the circus monkeys in their skirts. Explain the nest of wood is not a home at all, but a blind for shooting wild ducks. Grab the shotgun by its metrical butt; aim at your Muse’s quacking, Pringled face. It’s good we’re talking like this, face to face. There should be more headbutting over poems. Citing an 80s brand has its cost but honors the teenage me, always in skirts, showing my sister how to Be the Duck with a potato-chip beak. Take me home, Mr. Revell. Or make yourself at home in my postbellum, Reconstruction face— my gray eyes, my rebel ears, all my ducks in the row of a defeated mouth. Poems were once civil. But war has torn my skirts off at the first ruffle, baring my butt