April 3: Amy Riddell

Like a Butterfly

for Amy Riddell

With a mouthful of bean dip,

I told you across the table covered

in my sprawling prose pretending to be poetry,

“How do you do it? You’re like a boxer.

You keep your eyes open, your arms in—

always a jab waiting in the wings.

I don’t do that.

I flail.”

My poems are tired toddlers

or drunken protestors in the rain

with blistered feet and signs too wet to be read

so they just start swearing.

You see where to hit

and how hard.

You study soft spots on repeat,

recall how fast the other falls.

You know divots in the record,

hearing skips before they happen.

You’re in the ring until the ding,

the last one standing.

I want those wings

that make you

light enough

to float.

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Read selections from Amy Riddell's Bullets in the Jewelry Box here. Then buy it. Lord have mercy, the things this poet does with words.