Poetry

By Merilee MacKay

That old underused unthought about writing
confusing multifaceted prism of words,
refracting my meaning with your experience
straightforward like an eddy in a river.
Thoughtto be a prison of rhythm and rhyme in a classroom.

At home in campus coffee houses and literary meetings,
or teenage bedrooms containing guitars and lost love.
A prison no longer, feeling sustains the reflection,
until snaps and soft clapping become the reward.

The best prize is not the laurel,
the snaps or claps,
but is an exhalation of awe
from a partner,
a reader
decoding the pattern of words and light.
Making my personal your understanding
the knowing echoing unheard of by the poet
but hoped for just the same.