Two Poems

By John I. Blair

Then there were two poems
Where before there’d been but one.

The second hid its sounds,
Its rhymes, within the first

Until that trick
No longer could be kept.

This was no train
Behind another at a crossing;

That took a Kenneth Koch
To catch.

I simply looked beyond
The words I saw before me,

Found alternatives
Had been there all the time.

©2016 John I. Blair