The Hip Poet
makes sidelong
allusion throwing bouquets
to those who get it
catch the exemplary
pain razor-
thin metonyms of injustice
pointing at what happens
to some people in some
cut and cut
off far away places
got caught
in a personal syntax of I did
this I did that not implying
I could do anything but re-
member rearrange
the wildflowers all correctly
named with a flourish
don’t say Forget-Me-Not
don’t say Gaza
don’t say Baltimore
Spoon River Poetry Review 42.1 (Summer 2017): 38.