What Is a Poem

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

A poem is what happens
when language forgets to behave.
It’s the thing you say
after you've screamed
and your throat gives out
and all you have left
is the heat in your chest
and the salt on your lip.

It is not polite.
It does not wait its turn.
It is the child
who asks about death
in the middle of dinner,
the body
remembering the hand
that once bruised it,
long after the bruise
has faded.

A poem is a splinter
you leave in—
not because you like the pain,
but because pulling it out
would mean losing
the way it reminds you
you’re still alive.

Sometimes,
a poem is the breath
between what you meant to say
and what you actually said—
the place where the lie
almost didn’t make it.

It is not a trick.
It is not a performance.
It is the blood
you wipe off your fingers
before you shake someone’s hand.

A poem
is what I write
when I can’t look someone I love
in the eye.
It is the dress I wear
after the door slams.
It is the letter
I never sent,
but folded
like a burial cloth
and kept
in the drawer
with my mother’s scarf.

A poem is the opposite of forgetting.
It is the body remembering
what the mouth was too afraid
to name.

And when it’s real,
a poem does not comfort.
It enters you
like a needle—
then leaves the thread.