Word Woman

She stayed open to words

any day of time or night. Sang
words if they wanted thrumming,
mumbled humbled ones, bathed
others in black ink. Words

were people in her mind. Without
them she couldn’t imagine the
something she might be.
Come in, come in, she said when
they arrived. She fixed a place

for each, knew most of their
morphological needs. They
knew they might denote, connote,
obscure, shade, or just freely lie
around, lying, telling truth,

cursing coarsely, moaning
hoarsely, leaping into phones
to ride electrons in the clouds.
Toward words she truly
tried to act the perfect hostess.

hans ostrom 20

The Word Woman

 for the memory of W.B.

She remained available to words
any day of time or night.  Sang
words if they wanted thrumming,
mumbled humbled ones, bathed
others in black ink.  Words
were people in her mind.  Without
them she couldn’t imagine the
something she’d be without them.
Come on, come in, she said when
they arrived.  She fixed a place
for each, knew most of their
morphological needs.  They
knew they might denote, connote,
obscure, shade, or just freely lie
around her home.
Toward words she truly
tried to act the perfect hostess.