• how to start a poem


    Open
    the poem with a sentence.

    No,
    Open the poem with a sky
    folded into a sentence.

    No,
    Open the poem with a sky
    built backwards to confuse the silvery trained doves of your eyes,
    and to send them somewhere
    new. Call this place home,
    and do not keep cages there.

    No!
    Open the poem with a crowbar!
    Pry meaning from the
    spaces between words, otherwise this
    black paint will dry over the
    seams and the poem will
    gasp
    and not be let out!

    No:
    Open the poem without struggling.
    Let the fish think itself slipping away
    like mercury or a rhyme
    for silver.
    Let it shimmer under the darkest blue
    getting smaller and smaller until it is a star
    in a sky built backwards
    and do not set the hook
    until you are out of
    lines.