Prose

If even one word doesn't sound like talk,
If one half-syllable is not quite right,
What have you got, exactly? Something slight,
Maybe a greeting card, the kind they stock
For grandma's birthday. You've got writer's block?
Stop writing! Eat a peach, sit through a night
And think things over. Sometimes it's a fight
To make it poetry. There is no clock –

Although there is, or damn well ought to be,
Some rhythm, some suggestion of the heart
That pumps, wings beating, the pounding of the sea
Against the shore, of something counting time
To keep each singular event apart,
To make it poetry. And it could rhyme.