Deep for Words
by Anthony Liccione
I’ve seen words
cut an aged man to ground,
and wordless silence
to a young boy
not condition to grow.
The woman in 3B below
whose face is beat bruised
by the words of her husband,
will ask me when we pass
to fetch mail from our boxes,
if I had a good day today,
and I’ll smile and say
that it could’ve been better, and
they’ll fight the day into night,
him punching the walls senseless
and she continues to stay–
while I sit at my typewriter
stroking and kissing verses
that come to a poem, preciously
bedding them comfortably
onto the white sheet paper to sleep.
Sweat awakened in the dark
to her face in my mirror.
And I’ll ask God
for forgiveness for
having a simple life,
a few stitches sewn
around my pocket,
ashamed for having the brain
other people lack,
leaking out ignorance
all over the world.