Do I still have a voice? 

 

 

I got embarrassingly cocky lately

beginning to think i knew something

about poetry,

about writing poetry

even about reading poetry

it was as tho i was

becoming an inside stream

of understanding, giving advise

suggesting, …it might work better this way,

acting the tailor of lines and metaphors

maybe even reaching into the whirlpool

of ideas about style and form.

Beware, when you begin to suppose you know

 - it probably applies to any soda fountain of opinions -

and you get brave enough to wade

in above your pants bottoms you’re

already in over your head,

altho i don’t think you will believe me

and just think I’m trying to be a master.

I have had to get past the high water mark

where I was already drowning in my

own swirling mass of ideas, thoughts

and memories running down my bare back

in the walk in shower that has rough tape

on the floor so I don’t slip in the wet

 

 

© Sharon Lopez Mooney, “Do I still have a voice?”, in The Avalon Literary Review, Spring Edition ed. Valerie Rubino, Orlando, Florida 2023