A poem is built from thoughts so deep, truth so obvious
laced through knuckle-script
and molar brass.
It leaks when no one’s watching
from ankle-chords,
from the valve behind the eye.
You don’t find it.
It outgrows you,
It lives when
you don't .
It’s the eighth toe
you never knew you had,
curling in a sockless shoe,
itching
during weddings.
It is not about trees,
or time,
or the myth of birds.
It’s the scent that doesn’t belong
crushed battery in rosewater,
ozone in your mother’s drawer,
that unforgiving scent.
A poem bites the slowest nerve.
It knows which tendon you dream through.
It blinks in ternary.
You forget its face
until it replaces yours.
Don’t look for it.
Check your palm
That spinal shiver
next time you speak.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
What the poem does not say
Aka Phantom Tongues