A dirt devil dips into
the valley, crashes and breaks itself
on red canyon walls
Mina Loy spins her words dizzy,
round and round
but they only get lost in the ground
while today I scrape by
How many may I say,
to your ten, Sir?
Your pockets are empty but
you are rich in noise.

Words fall heavy out of man's lips
My own words carried away
by a wind
still spinning against that heavy rock
that even Nancy could not crush
nor Gertrude
you cannot put them in a box
but you tried
the square rock chittering at Woolf
as she crossed the lawn of Oxford.
She found a way into their library
after all

we only have handfuls of
all the thousands of words
buried under rubble
the rocks
the canyons
the words
of men.
but gradually
they escape
as only the wind can.