Handwriting
Be it my own secret heart -
ink damned -
where flutters a thought
full on the night; a witness
warm behind my eyes,
or a trail of bird feathers
wet
with indigo sleep,
flat upon a parched brown map
of caffeine deaths -
my handwriting will run away
from me.
There is no tip of horse hair,
or dipping lip of Arabian song
that holds on
to the spindled legs of my form;
no waxed up folds
of a conspirator's golden
slight of tongue
that can keep my curving lines
from falling off the sides.
They rule by thumb -
all smudged up love too close -
cram my letters,
smear my sentences too long
and I wonder where the meaning
has gone –
gone, gone, it has now morning comes;
my page, a nest
of magpie words.
