The Slippery Work of Being a Poet.

They are slippery, words.
You use them carelessly, profligately,
as if there was an endless supply,
building mysteries so commonplace
no one notices, now and then a flash
of color or temper, a bit of petulance
to disturb the flow. A poor historian
with a sense of sound and composition
and a need to show off and hide
all at the same time.

They are your plaything.
Your Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria,
exploring what you feel but cannot quite
say like a normal person. You stack them
and restack them, splatter them with paint,
do a bit of slight of hand,
still a child with a magic kit
but clumsy hands.