I am collecting scraps,
\npieces of lint from my heart,
\nwords that faltered
\nor fell off the table.
\nLittle phrases that pleased me.
\nThey were simply blue,
\nor held up their hands,
\nor smelled like roses.
\nI am assembling a whole book
\nof them,
\nlike a patchwork quilt,
\nwords that begged for a place,
\none of a kind,
\na phrase someone used
\nand stuck like glue in memory.<\/p>\n
Kick booty, Mom! said Melissa,
\nwhen Mary went to a piano lesson.
\nCase in point, someone said,
\nhow droll.
\nOr three words
\nthat started a poem.
\nThe sky fell!
\nBut what next?
\nWas there dust?
\nMuch debris?
\nDid the stars fly away?<\/p>\n
Or endless poems I started
\nand never finished.
\nWas love ever complete?
\nDid it ever have endings?
\nWas it late to a party?
\nLove at first sight?
\nScraps, pieces, quotations.
\nThough I hate maxims
\nand never kept them,
\nthrew them in the yard somewhere.<\/p>\n
Thistles grew up prickly and beautiful
\nand hard to touch.
\nI\u2019ll call this collection bouquets,
\nseashells, old bottles,
\nor songs that kept playing
\na half tune all their lives,
\nuntil I brought them together
\nlike a heap of children,
\npiling up on each other,
\nin a ball of laughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am collecting scraps, pieces of lint from my heart, words that faltered or fell off the table. Little phrases that pleased me. They were…<\/p>\n