This is the issue, right?

How do we honor the thing, right?

And what is the thing?

The poem? the poet?

The arrow that springs from

the bow of the world

or the target we fix with it?

Isn’t it pretty

to think that?

Yes, it is.

Poetry helps us freeze

the arrow of time

if only for a small slice of now.

And it tastes better

than watermelon on a

cruel

solstice

day.