Found Poem (For Ashley)

by Kevin Heslop

There’s a sappy syntax,
lover:

nothing’s out of place.
Every image shares

in the languid, familiar burning
of the sky

alien vowels so instant
they shimmer. Ash,

I’ll play around a bit:
scatter-brained, tense-changing,

rhythmically-awkward poem, Ash;
Ash, spectacles and leather jacket,

vivid lover, sweet poem, my cohesion.

And I’m sorry these are unfamiliar
terms, substituting

the disadvantage of the penultimate grasp
for something easier:

you’ve got a love poem;
I’ve got an internal function,

and I hope this affirms your sense
of the rhyme we are.

And I’ll leave it there, for the moment,
and hope I haven’t said too much.

— from Juniper Volume 2, Issue 3