Merely Words


They are light switches, illuminating the dark of things,
or the withered tips and handles of things.
Between the fermenting dough of desire and the dry bread of facts,
they are an array of flames slanted in the furnace,
carving peaks, passes, and fissures on the dough’s surface.

Some words lie docile like the fur of beasts under stroking hands
trembling variegated stillness, others arrive unannounced,
as fragments of an exploded whole,
unable to reassemble the original cause or glaring force.

Not even Pygmalion’s or Midas’ fingers
could soften or harden them.
They bring the mysterious breath of all existence,
a life we’ve never lived,
even the people there cannot escape death.

For example, when I arrange these words,
the osmanthus tree outside the window grows taller, for example,
a student’s leave request note from a long-ended semester
somehow kept in my drawer, stating:
“The organization has important matters.”

And as a drained structure, it always reveals
on the damp bed of a ditch a snail’s slow confidence.