Easy as an exquisite corpse paraphrased
as dictionaried as a pontificator
raised by the thump of the 146 bus—
these 16 are for you. Shout out
to the city warblers yelling in slanted
syllables on avenues porous
with ill-built adornments & horse-riding
monuments. These 16 are for you:
linebreakers & trash talkers, polysyllabic
halfsteppers ready to mom’s spaghetti
their one opportunity. Meanwhile,
the rooftop across from us undercuts
the sunsetted skyline & is topped with
two metric heretics dressed
like crows. Another bullheaded poet
ina Bulls hat rests his elbows
on the bench back & wonders if
it is his hoarse verse or the verbed
streetlights making ellipsis from
the veritable trees & inevitable breezes.
Copyright © 2025 by Adrian Matejka. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 24, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.