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My Mortgage for a Poem

Save me from all this mounting debt! Bring me
relief as letters from the bank arrive
with news of growing interest or more
adjustments due to insurance. My poor
account lies flat, battered in the balance.
It cannot meet escrow upon the field.
A poem! A poem! My mortgage for a poem!
Ride up on some relentless rhythmic swell
and plant your sturdy metaphors around
what I deposit. Rise up with diction
blaring assonance while cymbals crash.
Break lines! Roll tropes! Arrest my checkbook’s woe!
A poem! A poem! My mortgage for a poem!

—
Brian C. Billings is a professor of English and drama at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, where he also serves as the editor-in-chief for Aquila Review. His poems have appeared in Abandoned Mine, Argestes, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, Freshwater Literary Review, and The Woven Tale Press.

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