"THE JANITOR"

Started as a little poem I wrote in a dream, then became this over a longer span of being awake.

Poets who are loud and probably the best
need some child in the vase —
poke it in, between all their climbing,
the crisping sprigs of spindle thing.
The thistle and thyme
need a bluebell, or a sundae,
inexcusably dripping
and everywhere.

And what is this?
Just some poet sludge: I’m the old guy
pushing ‘round the coffee,
peeling off to someone’s show
that might be mine, but I’m half-listening.

Were you expecting something bigger
than a man with indigestion?
Try taking hand before you shake it:
it’s still downy through the bristle
when it’s not a gonging cymbal.

Now today I’ll tug my lunch
down to the empty school yard,
crinkle down into a ballad,
scuffle off to change a lightbulb.
My muttered verses shape a wallflower,
their curls both too green and cracked
for folks to take them seriously.

But then I’ll hush my splinter-seeking,
save my voice for bedtime stories.
She’s the child we all heard singing:
I will hopeful die a puddle.

J.W.