Day: June 16, 2023

the wordsthe words

in the beginning was the word, and these are the words that came after.
these are the words that came to a man sitting in a chair.
these are the words that came while late summer rain gusted against a kitchen window.
these are the words that came to a woman in bed under a sheet
with two frayed hems and a hole.
these are the words that came from the sound of a pair of shoes being pulled back on.
these are the words that came after. these are the words that tell everything.
these are the words that explain nothing. these are they.

(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)

the biology of the inveteratesthe biology of the inveterates

looking up the word inveterate to see if it might mean
what i thought it might mean

flipping dictionary pages to reach the word
my eyes alighted first on intumescence, then on invaginate

and i considered how lovely those two words are together

and how my love and i are ever turning to each other
inveterates that we are

(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)

“In practice, language is always more or less vague, so that what we assert is never quite precise.” – Bertrand Russell, “Introduction” to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus