We used our words.
We used what words we had.
This is a sonnet, but that only cares if you're--
or that only matters if you're a poetry nerd.
We used our words.
We used what words we had to weld.
What words we had we wielded, kneeled, we knelt and wept.
We wrung the wet, the sweat.
We racked our lips.
We rang for words to ward off sleep, to warn,
to want ourselves, to want the Earth we mouthed it,
wound our vowels until it fit.
And fits the Earth we mounted, roused and rocked.
We harped.
We yawned and tried to yap and tried to fix a fixed we facted
felt. We fattened, fanfared, anthemed, hammered,
felt the word's worth stagnate, snap in half,
in heat, the wane, the melt. What words we'd hoarded halved
and wholly, porous.
Meanwhile, tide still tide, and we still
washed for sounds to mark and marked.
[APPLAUSE]