It’s when I notice language poems
anonymous as sonnets
I think of Homer, that collective no one knew,
of “Beowulf” and “Shakes-peare,” the avatars
invisible at the start.
Words fly from separate hands
to tattoo all the bulletin boards
with a palimpsest of tacks –
so much easier to see them when they’re independent dreamers
like green birds as they sing to summer dogs and firecrackers
than be awestruck by the one, the poet who lays everything low.
