Words escape me today.
Maybe they dribble down from my brain,
become the saliva that sits in my mouth,
get swallowed into the stomach,
and join the long alimentary journey,
only to end up what some words can be.

Or perhaps they sweat from my pores
and evaporate, invisible tendrils of body steam,
microscopic letters, little e’s and r’s
dancing with the atoms in the air.

Some words are left inside,
but they lie on my tongue like lozenges,
and tumble out clumsily,
useless words like “thing” and “nice”
and “paradigm”.

Next time I’ll trap them
in the mid-snap of synapse
before they transpire –
I’ll pluck them from nervous branches,
spit them out like fruit seeds,
and splatter their juices
all over the page.







[First published in Poetry Magazine.com, April 2001.]

10/04/2001

Posted on 10/04/2001
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