RUBBER POEM

A more famous poet’s best friend said

if you don’t risk sentimentality in a poem why bother.

Sentimentality is what we call feelings

that the writer is wholly inside of, but no one else is.

In that sense it’s the safest poetry act, no risk of transmission.

Videos of masturbation will always get more clicks than poetry

about the world wars or Midwestern childhood or discovering

     radium

or even love,

which suggests that sentimentality is unfairly maligned.

It’s only a quarter

to peep through the glory hole of the poem

at the man wincing and sighing at the feeling of himself,

and we do, though the moves are so generic

he could be rocking to earbud music, or taking a burning piss

because he went bare the last time, what a mistake.

Sentiment-discordant couples, now that’s a risk.

Unlike what the health pamplets tell you,

it’s usually the negative who converts the positive.

After enough unprotected encounters

the writer becomes immune to roses,

may go blind to the moon, contract

every stanza with ironic ampersands.

This poem is not like that.

It feels like real skin.

There’s a space at the tip to catch your teardrops.

If used correctly, the risk of reading this poem is lower

than what you did last night. Go ahead, now,

no one is watching.