Poem of the Week #38

They Wait

There are poems out there. I’ve felt them
pushing up against the gates, trying to escape.
Their voices rumble just below the surface

of sound. You can hear them singing
softly in the language of your mother.
Now and then, one tumbles over the transom,

makes its way onto the page—a crumb
from your lunch box or a torn snapshot
blown by the wind and lying on the ground.

There are poems in here. You find them
in the bottom of your pocket, now or later,
crushed petals made right by a father’s hand.

Some of them bloom within minutes, but some
have been forming since before the ice age.
They wait, these poems, to unfurl like one of those

little foam dinosaurs in a capsule that you drop
in the bathtub. You watch as the gel casing melts
and the squishy behemoth emerges. You watch

as it steps onto the smooth, shiny island of your knee.
An entire kingdom there awaits this porous herald,
awaits the creature’s fine voice and marvelous decree.


Lisa Vihos