Whoever’s good for more than seven words

shouldn’t wholly trust my compliments.

 

A sniper’s bullet outruns its sound,

word of it arrives too late.

 

My words outrun intent, I turn

my back on them and walk away.

 

I sleep among their fallen leaves,

I don’t dream of spring, I dream

 

of lightning bolts and floods

that loosen my grip on earth.

 

I dream of making a poem

of something better than words,

 

something like the betrayal in a tic,

a longing inviolable as an orbit.