They Don’t Talk Right

There’s a trick the good ones do
Even without the help of actors—

Somehow how the hunks of phrases
Meant to have been conversations

Actually stand out in the mind
From the rest of the apparatus,

And the mind imagines voices.
They don’t have to be too real.

Too real is too boring.
They have to be vivid,

Not lifeless and awkward,
Fine, but what does that mean?

Your doctor’s journal.
There’s a wide track.

Let’s go into the forest tomorrow.
Something there isn’t quite right.

Words lie around like heaped-up brush.
Sudden voices slip through some of us.