Manifesto for Tumor and Poem
       

It must be home-and slowly-grown,
allowed to long linger hearthside

alongside heart, blood, bone,
getting good and warm. Do not be

thrown by the erratic exotic
appearing full-flowered, fully blown,

and doing the trick as well, or better,
from a seed wild-sown.

Extremes are far too easy—
be they benignant or malign.

The ideal's a rogue affinity:
the invasive-but-contained one that,

though exiled from natal soil—its sole
known source, might just turn up

playing mouth organ for another
throat, breast, lung. Another voice.

Tweet

Copyright © 2015 Jo Ann Clark All rights reserved
from 1001 Facts of Prehistoric Life
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission