Sometimes words play trick or treat
Their gnomic, mischievous smiles are helixes
Unskeined
On my blank page;
But when
They do emerge from their cryptic tunnels
They are Midas’ herd, silvered, gossamer
Like a kiss, wet, on my seared skin.
Sometimes my pen salivates; I understand the urge
But not the deft interplay of dark and light—
Why tether them to my finite fancy
When boundless are their virile selves?
For bowdlerized, they are sterile witnesses
To unnamed tendencies
That cramp my brain;
With burning wings, otherwise, they flap
Across my skull’s firmament…
Wait, brood, sleep, decay:
And what else would melt
The guilt and sting they bring?
(Published in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, September 2002)
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