It’s Hard to be True to Words/ It’s Hard for Words to be True

Trick trick trickles of words snow

into black seas,    their undersides worn

holey and white-

washed.                           Rubbed-raw

curvatures.            Like Hyacinth,

woman-flower.     Skin scabbing

high sin, rupture–            hand-picked,

stretched, unwhole.       And Bob,

man-word.                                   She eared Bob sing,

to the rescue, here I am.             She bobbed dark

hair.               Loved a bobcat.    Bobbed in a hole-

dotted boat and began

to sink.

 

In short, holes in wood

and logic leave one

wrecked.    In rapture over taste

of would.          As in: would she

lift her sails high         would she

let herself drown?

 

Valerie Smith is a graduate of Rutgers-University Newark, where she earned an MA in English, and is in the process of finishing an MFA in Creative Writing. She has conributed articles to www.rethinkcaribeean.com, www.paulbyrondowns.com, and her personal blog www.throughthemirrorofmymind.wordpress.com.

Tagged poetry