stir words like alphabet soup even if they get soggy poet in beret proclaims with glued smile and eyes covered in shadows jumble them around a bit more, leave enough space to breathe. and don’t create lines of the moon, a field of flowers, packages festooned with gold bows a pink and peach colored sunset, the hush of evening and don’t write about a lonely room where dust lingers, lovers pirouette and emails hum with expectation she says don’t think of tears or rain. and no one wants lines zigzagging fast railroad tracks, too straight, too formulaic space is beautiful, white and wide. just jumble those words around, poet proclaims smile a little inverted. jumble holding pill pain, soothed, blood, sliced knife, I am, body, deflate star, night, and again sliced, happy, body, night, pain, soothe, knife knife, pill body, night, soothe, pain, sliced, blood lots of space breathing the poet strides away, gluing her smile tilting beret with desperation she tucks the moon and stars beneath her turtleneck where no one sees reciting her creed, her clickety-clack steps broken lines space stares up between words, a wet wasteland