A poem walked down a busy street
And saw a friend she’d like to meet.

So, off the sunny curb she strode
Into the middle of the road.

Distracted by the friend she spied,
she did not look from side to side.

The motorists, all heading home
were unprepared to stop for poems

that dash all willy-nilly forth,
and so they struck her down, of course.

Her meter was the first to go,
her verses all went to and fro.

Her light and buoyant rhythms next
were crumpled, as you might expect,

Until her meaning and her sense,
her over-arching sentiments

became no longer poetry,
but were like trash one often sees.

A lesson, older than the stars:
Even a poem must mind the cars.

– Jim Meskimen