With a single stroke by Kenneth Salzmann

The poem this was
going to be
would have been
built noun
by verb by
unexpected noun,
all stacked
one upon the other
like a daring house
of cards. The poem
this was going to be
could have defied
gravity
and menace
and the soft
breezes that begin
now to lift
nouns
and verbs
and nouns
and verbs
gently out
of reach.



Kenneth Salzmann’s poetry has appeared in such anthologies as Child of My Child, Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude, Riverine, Earth Blessings, and Stories of Music: Volume 1. He lives in Woodstock, New York, and Ajijic, Mexico, with his wife, editor Sandi Gelles-Cole.