I Know It When I See It Poem by Donal Mahoney

There are poems everywhere
but you have to find them,
a teacher told my class long ago.
I was a kid sitting at a desk,
cowlicks sprouting from my scalp,
no laptops available then, just paper
and a No.2 pencil, sharply pointed.
I didn't know what poetry was but I
had to find out. It might be on the test.

Many decades later I understand
what she meant. I still don't know
what poetry is but like pornography
I know it when I see it. I wish she had
come with me to places in my life
where I found poems hiding, in old
elevators stalled in housing projects
and on benches waiting for a bus
to go back home to sleep before
having to wait for a bus again.

There are indeed poems everywhere,
as my teacher said, and anyone
can find them anywhere if they look.
It's nice to find them in a garden
or on a mountain top on a sunny day
but sometimes a poem appears when
you take the garbage out at night
and you see one sleeping in the alley.
Poems are everywhere and sometimes
one of them will break your heart.