A poem of mine appears in the anthology Bards Against Hunger Kansas City on pages 12-13. It is too difficult to get a picture of the poem, so I am pasting in a copy.
James P. Cooper
Knowing When Not to Speak
Despite my profession, I don’t discuss
subordinate clauses with the kids selling
cookies in front of the grocery store.
I don’t ask the pharmacist to give me
three correlative conjunctions along with
my prescriptions. I don’t ask the person
in produce where the conjunctive adverbs
are located. I don’t ask the person
needing my help to reach something
from a top shelf to give me three signal verbs
in exchange. I don’t ask the person saying
“excuse me” in dairy to point me toward
the coordinate conjunctions. I don’t ask
the person ringing up my groceries to define
and use an appositive in a sentence.
Afterwards, at the post office, I don’t ask
the clerk handing me my change to add
three present participles to my purchase.
“We all have our specialties,” my doctor says,
when I ask her to check my lungs
for subordinate conjunctions. As we talk,
I offer to write a prescription for comma
splices and fused sentences, but she says
she may call for an appointment when she needs
to insert semicolons in between
main clauses that are related in some way.
