Poetry Lesson: Grade 6

Who says your poem
Has to sound like mine?
Who says yours
Can’t be as long as your earrings
Hooping easily towards
Your shoulders,
Or short as your answers
To you Mom’s questions.

Who says your poem
Has to rhyme?
Maybe it finds itself
Back again another way,
Like the scrawling heart patterns
That lace the edges of your
Class notes.

Who says your poem
Has to show off?
Maybe it’s quiet, like
The waiting inside you,
The ticking off
Of the days of childhood
While you grow.

Who says
Anything about your poem,
Except that it takes you
From who you were
A long, old minute ago
To who you are
Now.