I want to be as poetic as possible

so if the Brontes were alive

they would make me a heroine

all starry eyed with violence,

or Blake would call me a song

of both innocence and experience.

Ovid would wish to dance with me,

turn into monsters and flowers with me,

because my poetic sensibilities

would go beyond Virgil’s perfectionist tendencies.

I desire to be as poetic as possible

so if the world came crashing down

they would call on me to write songs about it,

to set the apocalypse to the lyre like Homer.

And Shelley would find it so tragic

she’d wish there was a next time,

a next time to marry me, because we all know

Byron’s ‘she’ in beauty is really Percy.

I want to be as poetic as possible

so this legacy which lives within me

can be set free like Sappho’s love

and I can open without history’s key.

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Poem: © Kristiana Reed 2020

Between the Trees UK

Between the Trees US

Signed copies on Etsy

Photograph by Kristiana Reed