Poetry: Introduction (A Poem for Poetry)

You don’t need philosophy
to read a poem, much less to be
pierced by a poem, or to feel
its force, tugging your inner child
like a hummingbird of words.

You don’t need science to read poems.
Poems are beasts that defy atomic theory
and undergo Lamarckian Evolution:
rocks that want to be peeled into horses;
lungs turned into gills and meteor stones.

You don’t need these theories, to explain
how the heart, chipped in pieces, floats
in your chest like plasma. The wings
of these poems cannot be kept inside

(Sometimes I want to be Icarus, melt them
so that they don’t haunt me at night.)

You don’t need to read these poems
like expensive restaurants, a-la-carte—
if you do, expect your mouth to dry
out like cardboard and oil stains—
cement upon a vagabond’s skin.

Please read carefully as I tell you stories.
You don’t need philosophy or science.
Only your heart will do.