My six-year-old poetry teacher
My brain is jammed
with the noise of errands
and the poem knows it,
waiting
in the quiet prison
of my ribcage
looking
for a way out.
Meanwhile,
the noticing
pours out of you
blunt and new,
like the colour of the girl’s hair
in your drawing
that is not brown or blonde,
you tell me,
it is like a paper bag,
which of course it is.
How you describe
grandpa’s face
as mushy,
and that a frog
would feel like a bird
if you held it tight
in your hand.
How nuns
look like black and white versions
of Red Riding Hood,
and how library books
smell like closets.
So I keep asking
and the answers drop out of you
obvious as stones,
each one a lesson
in what it takes
to be a poet.