Poems

Breakup Syntax

He liked to be at the end
Of sentences, the most definite
Punctuation, preferably a period,
Though a colon was good
And so was a semicolon
But not a dash and definitely
Not a comma. He would stand
In the sun just outside the shade
Of that sycamore tree an ancestor
Planted along the river where
No language can match
The swiftness of the current,
Where no woman can understand
Why a man would need the end stop
When he never brought a message
Through her body that left it.

–Shaun Perkins

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