I'm debating.
This poem is a golden shovel.
It's a form that Terrance Hayes developed in homage
to Gwendolyn Brooks.
I think, mainly, it's the idea that you
must write a poem in which all of the end words--
you pick a line from Gwendolyn Brooks' work.
And then the end words of your poem
have to spell out that line.
And the line from Gwendolyn Brooks' work that I took
is, "you kiss all the great-lipped girls
that you can."
"From the Sidelines"
"It seems I have always sat here watching men
like you, who turn heads, whose gaze is
either a kiss, or a slap, or the whiplash of pure disregard.
Why fret?
All you're doing is walking.
You're this year's it, the one righteous integer of cool,
cruising down a great-lipped channel of hushed adoration.
Women turned girls again, brightening
in spite of themselves.
That brave wilting smile, you don't see it, do you?
How she tells herself to move on, blinks, until she can."