In this one, there's some lines in italics.
And that's because they're quotations.
It's actually the best lines of poem.
And they were spoken by your own homegrown Steve Orlen.
So to do italics, I'll have to hold up a finger or something.
Then you know that Steve speaking.
From Houston, he's phoning it in, right?
It's a poem called "Practice."
"To weep unbidden, to wake at night in order to weep,
to wait for the whisker on the face of the clock,
to twitch again, moving the dumb day forward.
Is this merely practice?
Some believe in heaven, some in rest.
We'll float, you said.
Afterward, we'll float between two worlds.
Five bronze beetles, stacked like spoons in one
peony blossom, drugged by lust.
If I came back as a bird, I'd remember that.
Until everyone we love is safe is what you said."