Accidental Poem


I discovered it
lying on a sidewalk.
No, discovered isn’t right,
I stumbled upon it,
slipped on it,
a banana peel of a poem
just sitting there.
It had been there for days
all slimed up and slippery.
A homeless man with an MFA
in creative writing from Iowa
saw it last week,
recognized it for what it was
but had neither pen nor pencil
so he memorized it.
You can hear him mumbling
some lines to the stray dogs
late at night, behind the soup kitchen.
Others paid it no attention
or avoided it all together,
stepping over it if they did see it. 
But me, accidental poet, 
I stepped right on it,
slipped on its sliminess
into an embarrassing pratfall,
that left everyone laughing but me.
​
---this poem was first published in Hartford Avenue Poets, Masquerades & Misdemeanors, (Pebblebrook Press)