My Business Isn't Poem by Mark Heathcote

My business isn't to make you laugh.
Or to stretch my neck low or high like a giraffe.
My business isn't performing minor miracles.
Twisting internally to align with you.
And you are not an effigy.
I should constantly admire.
Because you can't do anything wrong.
A star conjunction of sorts it may well be.
But I need something more substantial than that old tin hat.

'Man, the trenches; look out, boys;
There's incoming fire! '
I need a lily of the valley perpetually in flower.
I need an occasional field poppy my senses can devour.
I need a honeysuckle vine that isn't ensconced.
On leaving, but is constantly entwining my body
and mind. Whispering—to my soul, my spirit
not in any grand gesture, be mine for the rest of all time.