What Poetry Is

Poetry is—

The fifty kinds of rum in Key West and the rough-shelled oysters being shucked behind the bar by hands that play jazz trombone after closing time.

Nabokov's butterflies, and the powdery wings of moths batting the bedside lamp on some late summer night (millers, my Grandma Bailey called them).

The Old English Sheepdog standing waiting in the Quad, patience heavily distilled.

Sun after rain; rain again.

The sleekly polished wooden floor of the old basketball pavillion, unseen traces of tatooing shoes and sweat evoking tenth grade and the seminary court.

My chased silver Navajo pen.

The stone wall and the hunter clearing it, a dappled gray named Tapitia we're all urging on—my heart bunching and rising every time he does.

—Christie