A POEM A DAY

Every day is a poem when you smile at strangers.

I am a poem today, tomorrow too, and suddenly
smiling is to sun is to Texas is to sweat. Lip
sweat means I’ve been speaking or singing
or confusing the two, and that is a poem
too.

Every place is your shower 
as soon as you start to sing
too. 
I hate that when people are asked if they like to sing,
they say only in the shower. When they really mean
only when I control the drowning
only when the bathwater is listening
only when the water is my own wonderful
as if this world did not weep seventy percent
of its life. 
as if our bodies were not stifled with the sea
the moment our mothers saw our fathers sweat
in the Texas heat, which is a smile, which is
proof that the body does not sing when it
is supposed to, but when the water in us
sets and we feel the sweat announce itself
as surrender. 

Every day is a poem when you smile a song
in the shower of South Congress and Riverside.
I am sweating and not sorry because
it has to happen like this. 

Water went through me
Wet me with the wonder
that was my own. Oh it’s happening again.
The songs are smiling, I am sweating
surrender. The day, which is a poem,
is asunder with symphony. Are you
listening?
Tell me,
What stone sunk before me
and what self came up
after?