Poems need papers

to travel

to work

published or

in the copy machine

they have to have papers

to be read and legitimized

just a blue screen

will not suffice

poems need to be documented

and allowed free access

because so many are

courageous and honest

and do the work the rest of us

do not want to do

poems should be able

to climb walls

and swim rivers

and not be stopped

or separated from their authors

they are after all

just poor wanderers

seeking asylum

looking for a future book

words hiding in the shadows

waiting to be read

wanting to be recognized

hard-working poems who left

their miserable authors

with nothing but

the words on their back.