Against Untitled

Ron Koertge

Let’s say poems live in a town all their own.

Free Verse opens a massage parlor, haiku

run the macrobiotic restaurant, doggerel

howls when a fire engine goes by, sonnets

gaze up at shuttered windows, a sestina

runs the copy shop.

Your poem lives there, too, and crossing Blue

Guitar St., it’s hit by a bus. Its wallet says

"Untitled," so it’s sent to the morgue with

Jonathan Doe dangling from one iambic foot.

Not a pretty picture, is it. And how about your

new poems, all untitled, all standing in the street

red-faced and squalling as everyone else is

called in to dinner.