Initials Poem by Leonard Dabydeen

why it had to be

this way

and not as you’d have liked

that way

this way or that way

doesn’t matter

or maybe it does

you try to figure it out

like you figure which shirt

to wear

for the dinner party

and some of us hide it in the mind

like the moon

hides behind the clouds

and shows up when you least expected

they say much about his poems

and he’s T.S. Eliot

the initials reprimand his full name

so why then it’s not W. Shakespeare

instead of William Shakespeare

or E. Dickinson for Emily Dickinson

or G. Chaucer for Geoffrey Chaucer

somehow the rendition is lackluster

if we say his name is Thomas Stearn Eliot

so we exude delight saying his name

is T.S. Eliot

I like the full name better

than initials.