Perspective

"We poets." Please! I never don that word.
You might as well reduce a man who cries
To nothing but his brimming pickled eyes.
You might as well transform into absurd
Stick-figures all the sinews of a bird,
Pretend that nothing feathered leaps and flies.
To speak like this would hasten the demise
Of any clear perspective undeferred.

I set up rhymes as paddles work with clay,
As cracked and sweating hands replace a stone,
As lace-white fingers tug a lucent thread,
As lorry drivers navigate the day.
I write because I spend my nights alone
As many living do, and all the dead.