A boy asks me
write a poem
to a boy
a poem
is a real thing
like a bike or
goggles for swimming
I’ve been remembering
turtle slow
what it’s like to
be interrupted by myself
beauty a hackney
cab of commerce
sits ahead
proud in the rickshaw
mixing up cultures geographies
biographies like AI
hanging over us
doesn’t hang
cut the gallows tumor
death is a memory
something that happens
to me before
a volcano
stares over the trees
Copyright © 2025 by Mike Tyler. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 2, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
