My friend tells me that I am a wordsmith, forever troubled by the ineffable, life, death, all that limns the path between,
I conjure the earnestness of her voice, its confidence in my work working,
sensing metaphors at moments bewildering and overwhelming….
I recollect her recollecting of what I said when I said it so gracefully, effortless intimate intricacies of some small thing screaming and shuttering— I am here, in this place, I am this place nameless and tongueless, except in luminescence of voice,
I wrestle with her faith in chicanery, me turning word tricks on white space, like wet muzzled puppy, tongue hanging eagerly, affirmation suspended like acrobat, hide my insecurity, you insist
My confident friend tells me that I am a wordsmith,
I think, but how could she know, how could she know?
Heart screaming what lips, much cautioned with grandmother's hand, muttering teeth poised to take a chunk out of connection, ours....I am no word processor, no typesetter, no linguistic magician, but a stick figure with fingers too pudgy to scribble, demands of our profession,
No longer confident in my professing, this profession, too, leaves me in thick mud clamoring for muse,
ode for words that come between beginning to write what I must and what I feel, mythic ill-fated lovers…fated death, an imagined post-life heaven, paradise promise, to kiss again swallow the words never uttered, ode
Blank page, half written sentence, ghosts daring me in bombastic silence, half-sly grin that bows and breaks in low laugh and silence, again, between the page and I, no subtle dance, no gentle nudge of breath on neck,quickening promise of coming together, later
Wordsmith, she insists and I want to embrace her sincerity, illuminate dark places where intellect don’t shine and darkness thick like black Afro, too much to be conquered
Wordsmithing inappropriate gestures toward a meaning that scholarly praise will never find heaped upon these words,
lynchrope, thick and weighty, this doctorate, there is a crowd, not so secret, waiting open-mouthed, breath suspended my demise, beyond the door
My friend declares that I am a wordsmith,
my worth in words, wanders,wanes--a wordsmith she says--a wordsmith maybe,
no, a wordsmith.
