I love parentheses and commas and dashes and run-ons and the overuse of the word ‘and’ (is this already evident?) and I think you should use whatever you feel is your style, well-meaning editors be damned.

Your ‘casual’ voice is lovely, it is you and I think it works better, even in an opinion piece, than the pretend voice of academe that some writers affect.

And the poem — you are not challenged, your language and imagery is lyrical. Just break up some lines and call it a poem. That’s what I do and we get to call our stuff — our art — whatever we want.

You be you — it works great.