Not a Nodus

The poet disturbs language,

Using it improperly,

Not the way that people speak,

Never exactly—even

If only found speech,

It’s been presented archly,

Like a mounted urinal,

Like a horse head in your sheets

To see you get the message.

And what is a poem’s message?

Oh, it differs exactly

As much as people differ,

A lot but not completely.

That incompleted difference

Authors Hirsch’s disturbance.

It’s hard to locate a poem

That could pass for normal talk

In the mind and in the ear,

For the eyes and on the page.

So let’s stick with that, for now.

It’s not really a problem,

May not make much of a whirl

In the waves, but a little,

At least, in rhythm, glint, pace—

It’s a poem if it disturbs

The language, if there’s something

Of a swerve in how it falls.