Through the Junkyard

I have just enough vocabulary to attach
long words to short meanings,
syntaxto tangle the tips of tongues.

The rest I've thrown into a junkyard
in my head and I notice, from time
to time, someone sneaking off with
ideas and rhymes tucked underneath
their arms. I spy shacks of crumpled
paper, houses of words stacked like
twigs, mazes of paperbacks and old
tomes like scattered old bones.

There's a junkyard in this junkyard,
a little room with letters dusted with
expressions and phrases shattered like glass,

too sharp to let pass through my mind.

I begin to wonder if I've thrown away

anything worth a second look.

 

Settled on my knees I begin to dig.

I can piece together, "Black
as midnight" "high as a kite", and
decide kicking around with my shoe
would be a better idea. There's my
first story, half a poem I wrote in 3rd
grade, a couple of words I never
bothered looking up, and a sign
I had placed there one uninspirational
and desperate night. "The Museum
of Great Works Undefined," it proclaims,
"Some assembly required."

Reviews

[Emily B]

how did I miss this one? thought I had read all your work