She Required Something Else Instead

Since she was convinced

imparting sense by parsing out

the lingua sacra of philology –

whose adamantine simulacra –

surgically sharp slices

of abstraction –

while purporting to reveal

what could be known and said,

in fact were crushing

sense till it was dead,

well – she required

something else instead.

And so, like Ezra Pound

(though who knew

why he gave up sound),

she’d give up words:

toss the weightless

turds up in the air

and watch them

not go anywhere.

She grew her yellow hair

as long as it would grow,

and daily combed it

to a golden glow –

as if she could find in its lyrical lines

the signs of a sensual means

of detecting the trembling tenet

she so hoped was there –

like the delicate pulse

of a bird or an elf –

the elsewhere she couldn’t

find anywhere else.

.