He Doesn’t Like Poetry

He doesn’t like poetry,
because it’s all just
white noise,
emitted by a human heart
that was never accurate
in the first place.

He moves by code,
numbers, graphs,
and the clever voices
arguing politics
over the radio.
There’s no room
for what he calls
‘sentimentality.’

But I am made of poetry,
sometimes buzzing
just as he says,
but other times singing
praises to the thump
in my chest,
the whosh
down my throat,
or the hiss
on my skin.

Hear me, hear me.
It hurts, it aches,
it flies–it cries!

And he can have none of that.

He moves by code,
not by prose,
and since I don’t speak enough
he moves past,
ignoring the sounds I emit.

‘Don’t leave.’

‘You left.’

‘Love me?’

Just noise. Just noise.

He only knows
it’s poetry.