A Poem Learns Its Exotic Name
by Audrey Howitt
Clarity runs skin deep,
like some well-oiled callous,
its hardness gleams
in afternoon’s bleached light
or like flower petals pressed between a slatted frame.
The pages of a book
don’t seem to mind
the seeping life that spreads across words
like tiny wounds.
They scuttle, crablike, out to the page edge
as if in a hurry to leave
before I learn their names.
Horatio, Richard, or Denise maybe
likely, something more exotic,
names that learned their nature dancing in half-light
I call them back before
they leap off their flat earth
looking for better working conditions.
Audrey Howitt lives and writes poetry in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not writing, she sings opera and teaches voice. She is also a licensed attorney and licensed marriage and family therapist. Ms. Howitt has been published in: Total Eclipse Poetry and Prose, Chiaroscuro-Darkness and Light, dVerse Poets Anthology, With Painted Words, Algebra of Owls and Lost Towers Publications.
Audrey’s website:
https://audreyhowittpoetry.blogspot.com/
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