~*~
Dord
For five years, Webster's New International Dictionary
mistakenly included an entry for a word, which did not exist.
In its simplest definition: density.
For five years, a question:
Do you know the dord of vegetable oil?
Scientists save time with experiments—
density, now almost a cough,
a clearing of the throat.
Where do ghost words appear from?
The etymologist’s closet is empty.
But perhaps, in a secret door
between Dorcopsis, a type of small kangaroo
and doré, golden in color, a word is conceived,
a mistake by the note taker.
D or d: word for density.
Messy handwriting, letters
too close and in the foggy windows
of his glasses a word
invents itself. Life beginning
as an error, a shadow
forming its own shape.
And with an awkward cry,
an unplanned birth.
We are handed
its inky footprints, what’s left
against the white page.
~*~
Unintentionally Typing the Word Life Instead of Lips
Maybe it's time to go back
to the days when you're eight—wild
hair, fingernails that keep earth
in a safe place. Maybe it’s those days,
city days, when you see a woman
with a cockatoo on her shoulder,
and a man with his hand
in another man’s pocket and wonder,
because nobody ever explained to you
what love was, but you are seeing it
by the handful walking in front of you.
You’re amazed at how much you can learn
inside a record store near a cat named Joey,
the owner showing you the album cover
of John and Yoko and nothing else.
When you return home, you spend hours
looking in the mirror because there is nothing
more interesting than the different shapes
you can make with your life.
~*~
?
Van Gogh may have left his
here, above the girl in pearl earring.
This tender hook, a sprig
of hair from a Seusslike head,
reminds us
what we do not know.
Death and heaven curl into its arm,
the beginning of a universe
in its small dot, a galaxy
expanding into a curve.
When I see it, I know
someone needs help
and I want to give them
a map, a dictionary, let them talk
to Einstein personally, as I know less
about the world than I did a decade ago
and each year, I realize my life
returns to what love equals—
half a heart
floating over a speck of dust.
~*~