soup kitchen

you are a run-on sentence
that only finds its finish
at my front door

the storm out side my window
is raining punctuation
and without an umbrella
you shiver on my welcome mat
waiting and coughing

I sneak out the back door
to catch the storm in a bucket

all day I boil brackets commas
and periods into a pot of soup

it bubbles and gurgles
into concise clauses
splashing apostrophes onto my arms

at dinnertime I add
a dassh of semi-colons
and wedge myself between parentheses

Now drink this
I tell you
it will make you feel better

but you choke on the first spoonful
and spit it out
I prefer Alphabet you say
it's like eating verbs

j. a. LoveGrove
Toronto ON