Dictionary, my lap dog, my little black book,
pick a thumb tab, any letter, and make me
sound smart. As it is, all my tattles
and blathering, all my sound and fury,
I’ve said zilch. On repeat. Boring the world
with son-of-a-bitches under my breath, I love you,
how was your day? Students riding westward, Lethe-bound
with divinest sense, Achaeans, and amphibrachs,
but never oxbow, favonian, sporran. Unless—
Oh, my fatidic soul!—I’ve murmured in sleep.
Doppelganger! Day and night in mouth and mind.
Anglo Saxon dime-a-dozen drib drab by day,
my forked tongue warbling in dreams
a coloratura: mummer, distelfink, scrim shaw.
Divulged in a whisper wordless words to God,
an inarticulate, cup-runneth-over huzzah
re my offspring, who live their own language.
Widdershins for how they travel in a whorl,
and sasquatch, between their legs the spot
they squat to wash. First question from my firstborn
to the magic eight ball: are leprechauns for real?
The icosahedron’s sage reply: It is decidedly so.
I need some yes/no answers from toilet bowl blue.
I need to calm my nerves atwitter in the dark rehearsing
for the great blackout, the great spelunk, a time
of no words, no trace of me beyond a handprint
on the igneous sky, a smear of cave painter’s pigments.
I can see it now, donnybrook among the bards
when they divine the origins of this poem
cat scratched in purple ink on a past due permission slip—
dictionary dip and dive, happenstance and fluke
to the nth degree—they’ll revoke my wardrobe
of fear and self-loathing, demand the shibboleth,
at which time, of course, I’ll blank. Zounds!
Dear sand canvas, dear message in a bottle,
I’m here on a desert island, coconuts and crabs for friends.
I brought my one book—not the King James,
not the complete plays, just my word bird,
which in a pinch will do as a doorstop, desktop pillow
of despair, fire starter on a dark night of the soul,
but wait—don’t even go there.