The Poet's Uniform



We wear pajamas to read the Poet Laureats on a papasan
or sit at our desks watching streetlamps flicker in the darkness.
The steam from tea rises in the cool air as the heat has been turned
down; everyone is at work in heated buildings where the company pays.
Ten minutes or an hour, several hours, our feet snuggling into
pink slippers with hearts on them, somewhat dirty after searching
for strawberries in a late summer morning where we pause to
watch the birds bathing, students jockying for parking spaces
only to throw their empty Subway bags out on the curb for me
to pick up later, still wearing mismatched pajamas.
to write takes expansiveness, a looseness, a silence, paisley
pants with striped tops, glasses held together by paperclips.
we write, no one notices, they do not understand the useless of
poetry, how it makes us feel less lonely by one.

The last line is taken from Kay Ryan's own words, a woman who never took a single writing class and is a renowned poet and Poet Laureate.