No matter how many times I try I can’t stop constructing Poems
as if they’re injured stories
with broken sentences
Some break crudely, with a bat to the comma
or a mallet to the rhyming stop
while others fracture elegantly
sheered apart with graceful precision
accurately
carrying
a cadence
No matter how many times I try I can’t stop pitying
their pain
or imagining their frustration
the longing to be whole again
to hold a coherent thought
for more than a few words
How shattered they look
like memories that crumbled
then collected quickly
off the floor
five second rule
served on a piece of paper
waiting for someone
to read
* * *
This was a class exercise, where we were to read “How many times” by Marie Howe and respond with a poem that starts the same way.