Effectuate
A couple of years after I started
I found the practice of law absurd and quit
Otherwise the word “Juncture”
Would be in my daily vocabulary
Lexocon and habit
Its own little jones was that it
Refused to appear in public
The press or courtroom without its ancillary,
Its two little cousins, “at” and “this”
Holding hands, always kissing
At this juncture Judge, , we decline a plea
At this juncture, we have no hand to play
At this juncture, we stonewall, we lie quiet, freely and frequently
At this juncture, we affectuate our escape
We run, we hide, we lay low, all part of the job
So I quit the law
Turned to a life of language
With its own kind of strife
A life of prosody, playing with words
Because I had nothing to say and wanted nothing to do
2 thoughts on "Effectuate"
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I love this. Turning from one profession to words is something we can all relate to.
So good! In its close, curious attention to language, it reminds me of a little poem by Heather McHugh called “To Have To”: