I Am Not That Poet

Or perhaps you picture 
a black-clad student in 
back of class, wilting 
on the drug of the day, 
carving punked out words 
into a silent desktop.

Sorry, you got it wrong.
I am not that poet. 

Maybe it’s more like 
a wrinkling hipster 
sipping overpriced 
lattes, scribbling nonsense  
on notebook pages curled 
at the edges, stained, 
brittle, prepared to read
only to other writers.

I promise you, 
I am not that poet.

Or wait—is it a  heavily  
made-up stranger tapping  
code into ether, sending it 
live on Instagram or 
screaming it into an 
iPhone, hoping like mad
something will stick? 

No, my friend.
I am not that poet. 

Oh, when you think 
of poets, you picture 
forest and field, tree 
huggers and flower children, 
semblances of a bloomless 
imagination, mute buds on 
a plant so common, 

you can’t recall the name?
I am not that poet.

It’s possible you never
thought of it at all,
never considered a poet
would be something so 
very much alive, 
a throbbing early 
morning, the kind of
dawn you dread, 
because if you faced it
head on, the intensity
might obliterate you. 

That might be closer to it.
That is more a poet.

Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright April 28, 2024, all rights reserved