Read if you wish

Read me, if you wish, like a two-fold pamphlet

handed out at street corners by children

forced out of childhood early, their eyes set

into surly orbits of need, desperate.

Patches of limp lines, thrust out as and when

the lights turn red.  A stereotyped gimmick

thrown into cars caught with windows open

weird damaged overlarge wings in that traffic

light, and sudden fright turning to a quick

indifference, “It’s that same old thing again”.

Or read me like frayed love letters, blinking

between dusty pages. The books from when men

still wrote letters, fancy penmanship and ink

counted for, not much, but still worth something.

Pressed, not thrown.  A shade of precious even,

preserved for a future nostalgia fix;

though the addressee didn’t know it then.

Or read me as I am, forget the tricks

of metaphor, of angles and semantics,

just words written into verse and plain spoken.