I am not a poet

Yesterday I taught my son how to

blow his nose. Press one side

and blow out the other. He insists

on sucking it in. My daughter blows

but sees no need for kleenex.  

My father hangs deer on his walls

because there are no trophies for erecting

buildings. Just walls. Not the kind that

keep aliens out. We don't have aliens

in Canada.

I am not a poet because I don’t

walk the streets of New York. I can be

seen talking to myself through the thick brush

inside my nostrils. But nobody sees.

That’s the thing.

Green is too opaque to notice

a poem by O’Hara or the smell of birds

singing “Piece by piece”. I love Kelly Clarkson

for her balls. She made something

of herself.

Is a mother something? I wonder about this.

I wonder why you can’t see past George

Washington to where I am sitting, reading

Alicia Ostriker on a single blade of green

grass. She is, after all not a redheaded lesbian.

And neither am I.

I tried to buckle my son in his car seat,

when he asked for the keys to my car.

He was going to pick up a brown haired girl

named Sarah. Pollen poured from his brow,

as they headed downstairs. I handed him

kleenex.  Just in case.