Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.
Wallace Stevens,
from Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
O Sweeney, come forth and articulate,
convey the nightingale’s face! The chill of
a word vocalized, true anodyne.
One syllable moves beneath the teeth.
What brings “what?”- both anointed and coined.
The tongue is a type of illusionist.
We are each understood by the other,
in good silence, or in between. The noun
is centralized, a bright platinum.
Sentences fly, written by their seasons,
or they wait on the freeway medians
with all of our verbs and mannered breaths.
