Dear Reader, I thought
I was prepared but I’m never
prepared but please, take this

it is your lift ticket, your perfume
that lingers in the fire-fickle room
long after you’ve vamoosed

and made that poor boy nursing
his third jellybean daiquiri
realize he missed his chance,

your bones already astericks,
your chipmunk glance a schwa.

    — Dean Young, from “Dear Reader”

Maybe poems are made of breath, the way water,
cajoled to boil, says, This is my soul, freed.

    — Dean Young, Scarecrow on Fire (via blogut)