Half-Souled Poem

Neighbor, reader, friend,
You may have a soul,
But we who are words

Can’t, right? It’s strange, then,
That having a soul
So often meant words.

The unparseable
Communications
Of other species

And fairy changeling
Children who couldn’t
Articulate well

For reasons that were
Motor, sensory,
Facial, cognitive,

Meant they had no souls.
And you speak of soul
In writing, magic

Runes, sigils, and glyphs.
So how are we not
Souled, these silent lines

Of characters pitched
Together, fuming,
By a mind without

Soul, belief in souls,
Or the skill to show,
Still, we must be souls?