There is this taste
that I can’t rinse, spit
or rid myself of lately
and it’s not the kind
left behind by a dentist
yanking a wisdom tooth
out or the ****** mouth
from an eighth grade
playground go around
or bad blood in the hood
but something more
like a fight for a life bored
to the bone and hung
out to dry in the sun
having to bite my tongue
on the curse of the irony
of it all that I find too
hard and bitter to swallow.

I expect
the day when
Poetry is no
longer forcefully
mulled
over
words,
when we commit
it
as of
us,
when we
reek
of it,
or rather
Poetry
reeks
of us,
not shunned or shunning by
the traps in
word-ings.
We Poets then
will truly spurt
and raise an elegy
off
the skin.

That one faithful day
libraries and others will shed
books,
letters and papers,
like finally autumn
leaves,
our chips into small
encasings
like pearls with shells
their.

And
those who choose us
on the shelves will
receive the reward
of our dragging
into
our depths like
persistent algae,
for
a while,
or forevermore.

And I’ll finally be
able to unveil to them:

“I am one of Poetry’s
revelations.”

For now/
pay the lyrical’s heed/
in its written ways/
by the respect of every/
blank space ending/
before each and every verse/
it brings/

lying in bed
the day cradled by darkness
drifting back through wisps
of who I'd been at thirty
baby suckling my *******
workday weary and money starved
yet proud of a life carved out
in fruit trees and a hammock
swaying beneath pines

such a long streaked memory
I crawl upon hands and knees
through the portal to now
recognizing that every blessing,
every tear stained disappointment
all the years of wiping down
studying, providing, enduring
have proffered this moment
an opportunity
       to step beyond
   the mind's confinement

to risk safety for beauty
anxiety for understanding
   to become again
a child of wonder
sculpting her future
in the clay of stars