Brief Response to "Poetry Slam" by Mark Edmundson

We
have heard your answer and will meet it with chops.
Find us beyond the lea,
in southern country where tongues like wicks
do so many pleasurable motions with our mouths.
We
make blush a continuous virtue. You could not lie
when faced with so much desire. We
know this is true. We
know what it is like to have love returned to us
like an arm in a box from a botched military operation.
The limb packed in dry ice and neatly washed
as if it could just attach itself to any body
with need. We
know what to do with such rituals, we have two celebrations,
one for the body and the other for the lonely part
that only wants to be reunited,
back to we, back to love, back to art.

We
keepers, we misers, our club of a club,
our ivy board club. Poetry is a dialogue
between the poet and the breath,
any more is good bread indeed.