"Don't get any
big ideas," they say
as if concepts
had a shape,
took up space,
put on weight.
"Don't be so
hormonal," we snap
as if phonemes
could cross
the synaptic gap;
as if we weren't
wordlessly
speaking to ourselves.
*
Perhaps experts
minted profane words
for sex—
for violence,
infirmity, and
betrayal next—
not because
they must be
discussed, but
rather, to act
as talismans,
so that we
wouldn't have to
contain them.
*
of hindsight,
we can now see
the brilliance
of the 20th century
poets
was to mishmash
their analogies
and to formulate
their metaphysics so exquisitely
backwards:
plainly, ideas
are not in things;
they only exist
as the bridges
between them.