asterisk black, castaway drafty
tangles of Grimsey, finglerlings jangly
the first poem betrayed, strays down the stairwell
lacking canter, yawning Zinfandel
brimming his whims, swimming hymnals
buried Valkyrie cries, furious symbols
swallowing quotients of scattered rattle
a valiant tangent of flat-out battle
clenched bouquet rhyme, morning glories
plucked from the last of our very first stories
when with swollen emotion
I stole your devotion
on emigrated floorboards, homeless soupçon
whistling all this with nothing to stand on

but the first poem is never poetry
and you should not waste your time
not for a flowery word or two
let me save you from that crime
it’s Manhattan prattle bat out the window
to chap patter flat out there on the street
and you must not fall for these diverting antics
because you think you hear a beat
it’s just a trick of a fickle meter
solvent run off with another line
do not let it run into your arms
I have cast it out of mine
as our lives are in wingspan, soaring out of view
in the physics of psalms, flighty as you

around the time my only heart broke
sometime before the last time I ever spoke
or mentioned ascension, the sonnet twinge
isochronal grammar, the orchestrated fringe
captured in letters, signed love and a thing
but free as a Bird in lines you could sing
all in effort to inhabit plumed compositions
all in good measure, but lost in auditions
days made of joints to digress and describe
marrow graffiti, bare bones of an outline
you had some glockenspiel to forget me
and find yourself along the way
a body of work
for everything else I could never say

which was fine for a year exactly
in a flood of organs, riverside khaki
until you suggested rather matter of factly
– if you think there’s something else
Well, you’re right.
There is.

Copyright © 2015 · Elizabeth Ganot · All Rights Reserved ·