those Pinteresque voices enjoy dictation
enjoy giving orders full of menace
like to see me writing their words
into books placed neatly on shelves in a bookcase
as though their sentences full of
what-ifs and that-suckses and you're-guiltys
are precious gems of wisdom
composed by Verdi's drunken librettist
for an opera maleficent, full of sound and fury

I made a secret door of the bookcase

laughing, I swung away the words
and entered the world where no menace inspires


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater