some words slip into our mouths
when we are unready
like cornsilk, or fruit flies pursuing gin
sweetness
quickly before we know they are there
we poof them out, easy
blink them gone

they drop: cigarette wrappers
into our rivers of dialogue,
clot the flow,
bloom to robotic life in the tide and

claw, bloodless, onto billboards and grin

salacious pork-stained teeth
above in every direction

I read a description of a famous man’s
writing:
“haunting landscapes”
it said and I thought
Is that good? or
are these two words just so familiar together
they sound like money changing fists?

There are poets whose landscapes blossom
and flourish, and yield
words
fat and ripe; alive, alive!
while other, less important men
tread these same fields with cleated boots
hammer up haunted, dead signs
scarred by words
as sneaky and bare as breath in sleep

words
more dangerous, erosive
because they approach with a smile
in the mouths and voices
of even our own,
the people we want so much
to believe.