Sally Naylor      Coral Springs         (Deborah Denicola)
Ars Poetica

A good poem never cries out loud
or names itself
but might reverberate -- a bit disheveled,
shining like that beamish boy,
chock full of little asides
and gratitude for ear and syllable:

for the full oomph and tongue dance,
all those little riffs of tintinnabulation,
violin crescendos or the solitary brogue of bagpipe,
robin’s warble, clown’s guffaw,
mouthing cockney or maybe Yiddish,

it zigzags through cloud

but above all will never recant,
is stuffed with whispered intimacies,
startled by love, a moment so tender and green no gallery can hold it,
so turbulent and whoosh,
so you waited all your life                tick tock

for this this this           

you will drown happy in it, that heart, that poem, I mean.