Poetry Shop

Some days it's hard work to draw them out,
even for a little while. In their protective 

shells, they sit in rows in the classroom,
eyes fixed on a point in the near distance— 

not letting on about anything, not speaking. 
But on another day you learn that one boxed

pizzas all night during Super Bowl Sunday,
and another didn't finish mopping drugstore

floors until nearly midnight. Yet they're here 
to tinker with words and forms, figure out how

to fit a sentiment as large and temperamental 
as explosive life into three or fourteen lines. All 

of you have bits of material. A sense of measure. 
Something to cut with, something to polish.