We wait for the light here, at 14th and Broadway,
Here, we hand passers-by silk ribboned poems,
We staple them to our neighborhood bulletin board,
We paste them to lampposts. And here, we fold poems
Into parking lots, under each windshield wiper blade,
We tape them up in the Ruby Room bathroom stalls.
Here, we hand letter haiku on Dubs colored confetti,
Weave them with daisies into vacant lot chain fences,
Slip them into glossy envelopes, and drop them
Into the mail slots of whole blocks downtown.
Here, 8th and Webster bullhorns and firecracker fists
Here, spray paint odes for boarded up storefronts,
And here, baybayin in balisong carved verses
For oaks lakeshore. Here, we set paper boat songs
Alongside egrets and geese, to float slow to the bay,
Westward paper airplane and origami crane poems,
Here, boombox blasting Digital Underground,
Here, our hella Baller ballgame singalong—
Because you said we should take words to the world.
Because every poem an arrival. Because we are here.
Copyright © 2025 by Barbara Jane Reyes. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 22, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
