Dactyllic stroller, seductress
or word to bow before?
You came from nowhere
and only for your sound.
I’m a lapsed Episcopalian
but you bring a gospellian appeal.
I imagine interchanging “I signify!”
but to whom or what? Your sister synonyms?
And yet they’re lovely too:
consecrate dedicate
deify purify
quiet iambs:
absolve, anoint, enshrine
all testaments to lexicon,
pure science.
But let me ask you this:
From whom or what or where
did you arrive?
Kathy Barham lives in Rose Valley, Pa., and received an MFA degree from Warren Wilson Graduate Program for Writers. These two poems were first published in the journal Hubbub.