I finished reading and slipped to the back of the crowd.
“I didn’t know you wrote poetry.”
We were both surprised.
I thought everyone wrote poetry.

Years ago, a friend and I floated down a river in Missouri,
love taking shape in the air between us—
“I’ve noticed you don’t speak with proper grammar,” she observed, approvingly.
“John Dryden can go fuck himself,” I replied,
“The way people speak is what is magical about language.”

I ain't worried too much about grammar—
But I spell as good as I can.
Grammar’s like color theory:
useful, sure, but not the thing itself.
It helps you tell the difference between
"I liked what she said"
and
"Her words caught me,
held me up in the light of her living."

My brother, when we were kids, would irritate our mother
Saying “I gots a new basketball,” looking her right in the eye.
I never cared much for the word myself—
But I wouldn’t have punished him for speaking his truth.
She wanted us to bear the markers
of civilized society,
But–
As Ross might have said,
I gots no time for that.

I’d be shocked
To find anyone
who never sang in place of speaking.