Smoke Signals

the driest of words burn hottest
once chopped, hacked, properly stacked
when our majesties have fallen to the hatchet
and the knife whose gleaming blade seems
to say
that metaphor is a metaphor
for life

when we have boiled out the vapor of the reason
a chance to savor spice and season
of the vitality of verb

collected is the syntactical sap, perhaps…
blow out the match and give the pipe a tap
reducing, the meter and the rhyme,
seducing curvature from line

as the colors rust from transparent rush
to some ambrosial orange crush
through the filters of the eyes mind, you
I looking into one another we can hear the words
written with our hands
before they’re said but can you—
I understand

our words are the flames that lick the furnace
whipping, flowing through the boughs
of our charred idol
a momentary heat
to carry aloft the wind
longing for a time when all rescind
untold

the curling smoke signs tell a story
none so evident
those lingering plumes of words unspoken,
clashing in the air with the softened clamor of
those that came before
but the metaphor lets us ignore
the floating rings of
what we meant.

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