Poems Wait

Poems wait
in file drawers
journal pages
laptop documents.

Strings of letterforms
that might have meaning.

Mounds of words
conglomerations
overflowing mouthfuls redundantly
piling over each other
sliding off the subject.

Wisp of an image on a scrap of paper.

An indecipherable scribble on a Post-it.

Alike in their waiting,
ready any time
to be lifted, scanned, slashed,
torn apart, ignored, cherished,
discarded.

Set in line
line over line
only words that tell
that do not call attention to themselves
that vanish into meaning.

The poem stands,
waiting reader.