Words Can’t Stop Talking about Themselves

Every word is an outpost

An edge and a central place

Of encounter, all in one,

Every word is Malta, is

Las Vegas, the space station,

Blackgrounds in Roman Britain.

Transgression and quarantine

Come together in a word,

In its brief moments in air

Or its ages of slower waves,

Painted, chiseled, or printed,

Still shifting, never the same.

A word is a subtle twitch

In the fabric of patterns

To which you pay attention,

To which you lend intention,

Cramped residence for meanings,

Pause endured while traveling.