The Poet/ Reader Dynamic

Readers step
into the rhythm,
that exists here—

Where meaning
flickers
like embers,
waiting
to catch.

I tease them
not with allegory
but with
the promise
of metaphor.

Pulling them
into my world
with something
convincing,
like

Raspberry fields,
pretzel-coated rain,
buckets of sorrow,
and sunken magnolias.

This is what they remember.