Many Words Never Appear in Poems

You know you can’t even break even.
You remind yourself of this often.

Still, you’re built to hope for miracles,
Since those who don’t hope drown more quickly.

Nothing much connects microscopic
To bulk properties of the cosmos

But funnel-webbed probabilities.
What comes out tends to be venomous,

Elegantly lethal to ideal
Arcs of formulas spanning the void.

You sit down by the mouths of those webs
And dream of catching spiders safely.

You choose your bets from the smaller set
Of sums you can imagine, rather

Than from equipossibilities,
Since you can only imagine odds

Collaged from rearranged memories,
Precious prior experiences.

This is why some of us who exist,
Perfectly valid words and phrases,

Good companions, plausible, friendly,
Never get our shot at poetry.