Edna St. Vincent Milla –
her friends called her Vincent –
lived for a time in New Ork,
in the Village.
E.E. Cummings lived there too –
and even I was living then –
but in the Midwest
in Indianapolis.

Then, my father,
sitting at his Linotype machine,
the hot lead slugs
clicking and falling,
would sometimes print
a poem of mine –
something he found
around the house.

Poems came to me
as if from far away.
I would feel them coming.
I would rush into the house,
looking for paper and pencil.
It had to be quick,
for they passed through me
and were gone forever.
What are children’s poems?
Like the sudden breeze 
that pulls the petals
from the honeysuckle.

Much later
when I lived in the Village,
E.E. Cummings was a faint legend.
Poets come and go.
Like squills that bloom
in the melting snow.