Poem 28, June 28

             Old Words

Old words hide on the page,

in books, in computer documents, in a journal,

in anthologies, unwritten but stored in the mind

of poets like memories of lovers, friends, family.

Hot summer days stifle my poetry,

new words swim naked, having left me behind.   

They splash, dive, float in an eternal

search to be truth, or simply escape their cage

of silence. My silences in old words contain

no mention of our embrace nor the softness

of it nor the times I touched your hand

& you did not jerk it away.

I sit alone at my computer as day

is chased by a cool night wind. I understand

the new words I seek in two languages. I promise

myself to speak them should ever we meet again.