UP CLOSE and Personal...

A POEM

You ask,  “ are you a poet?”
I don't respond.         Looking blankly past you,
behind anonymous eyes.

'Why would you ask?'
Didn't I bring you a scarlet river of silk,   a vessel of my tears,     warm like sake

to be drunk
drunk with you
to find the cows' path home again
dodging steaming dung pies
beads of dew on our fancy leather shoes--
“ooh..”   clenched fists;   twisted eyes
how I hate it when you ask me...

         'Sake?'



10/03/2015
N. Hoeppner