SUPPOSED TO LOVE WORDS


Isn't that what a Poet does?
But I've always seen words as adversaries,
savvy and reticent, resisting arrest,
searching for the far neurons where they can hide
unsummoned for eternity,
lazy and unmotivated.

It's only ideas that I remember, that hound me
like soldiers, giving a little butt with their heel
or arms, threatening
that they've only come this once
and if not put to paper, will leave
with some acre of brain and unused words.

I want to love words like music,
but I only see straining letters
wracking up on the page
as I pray something real might result.

If I write imagining an audience,
would ever read this,
all I can summon is _______________


Judith Pordon