And when to put it in and
when to take it out and
you remember your old English teacher
who had pernicious anemia
and despite paleness and gobs of lipstick
not much style herself,
she was the one who said
don’t begin with and,
and though you soon learned
that everything is added on,
just one thing after another,
the privacy or water and
the exhibitionism of rain,
take that storm this morning
and the lightning in the morning sky
between clouds and all your exclamation marks,
that’s horizontal lightning and this morning
not but but and, you can hear the wren
with her teakettle teakettle teakettle and
that man as in man and woman,
what was that bird, he said,
and this time it was the woodpecker,
a red-headed woodpecker and his mate
hammering on the rainspout.
