Easy Words

Where do they go, those cruel, those easy words
we wield in haste and toss away like knives?
Do they fly back to peck us, fat birds
fed on our long regretting all out lives?

Do they bloom out in waves that shear the sky,
ever-unfolding fan of living blade,
so that no gift of balm can rocket by,
outdistancing to heal the hurt once made?

Or do they burrow inward through the soul,
borrowing justice from the lack of light,
and, breeding reasons in that self-sealed hole,
contrive to sleep, content that right makes right.

Where do they go, the casual words we say
by nothing made, that nothing takes away.

Rhina P. Espaillat

backyard wildlife, Ricky Floyd