The words I never used

The words
I never used
just lie there.
Wasted
whores
Spread across
my paper,
Mute,
Unsatiated,

Cesspools of
phonemic dross,
Their mouths agape
with the trapped
Groan
that can become
a poem …
but
I clamped them
Shut
into envelope graves
and dresser drawers,
Unsounded.

They flail
dismembered
limbs
at me, these
vagrants
in my sea
of sounds
and words
and
names misplaced.
These furtive
memories
of loves and
almost-loves I
was once
ashamed of.

Grimy with
my own
indecision,
those iniquitous
cross-outs
come out to
haunt us,
to bless us,
Because they know
They must
All be broken
Martyrs
Marching on
On, onward
slashed across their backs
and scarred
in procession, always
toward the next-
Better bon mot.

Cursed, hapless,
they all plot against me,
form phrase-alliances,
speak,
Slurring
with parched lips
and pained tongues,
reeking from lack
of use.

…Here, I resign.
Rescuing
a few spurned
scratches from
the squalid mess
of letters.
Circling the
scant parts
I like,
Unfettering them
one at a time
from sepulchres
of yellowed pulp,

I knock them cold-
awake.
face-up,
their eyes
slapped open!
I plaster them in
fresh clothes.

And place them,

neatly…

…refitted
on taut,
daisy-white
sheets.
Finally, I talk back.
Like a girl
who speaks idly
to her dolls
while she
dresses them.

© Maggie McCombs 2024. All Rights Reserved.