The Sculptor

I think of you, always at a loss

not for words but for their meanings, stacked
some like skeletons disinterred from catacombs 

others like drunks on  cathedral steps seeking 

the forgiveness of proximity to a fading truth.

You take my words now, scrape them with spurls

you sculptor, removing  lumps and edges 
hiding the animal in your mind,

its appetites and irrepressible id.

At this moment of recollection

finding in our room the smell of old words,

loam on a forest floor fit to nourish new life,

I wonder at the shapes we make between our lips

and at what new meaning lingers there.