By Mary Atkinson
I like
the spaces
between
the lines
and the spaces
between the words
I like how you can
indent
some words
and
Not others
I like to put lots of words on one line and keep going all the way across the page then
Stop
I like how the word moon
brings nighttime to the page
and that a river can be a snake
or a border
or a squiggly mirror for the sky
I like the smell of honeysuckle blossoms
in winter
and the feel of soft rain on my face
on a sunny day
In a poem, I can do cartwheels in wet grass or
be a ten-year-old boy chasing fireflies with a jar
I like what I don’t say
and when I don’t say it
I like to cleverly cluster consonants and move smooth vowels
I like to repeat a pattern and see what that does
Sometimes I like to rhyme
But not all of the time
I like to write poetry
because
poetry
connects
me
to
you