how to start


Open
the poem with a sentence.

No,
Open the poem with a sky
folded into a sentence
.

No,
Open the poem with a sky
built backwards to confuse the silvery trained doves of your eyes,
and to send them somewhere
new. Call this place home,
and do not keep cages there.

No!
Open the poem with a crowbar!
Pry meaning from the
spaces between words, otherwise this
black paint will dry over the
seams and the poem will
gasp
and not be let out!

No:
Open the poem without struggling.
Let the fish think itself slipping away
like mercury or a rhyme
for silver
.
Let it shimmer under the darkest blue
getting smaller and smaller until it is a star
in a sky built backwards
and do not set the hook
until you are out of
lines.

--jurph