JOHN OLIVER SIMON

Not A Verb
--for Tesla Rose

The impression will not take on the blank page.
I paint the world with ink and try again.
A rainstorm comes through washing the windows clean.
There’s not a verb for miles. The timid birds
are hiding in the nest where they were born
and you can’t rustle up an omelet without
breaking a few eggs or paper-thin skulls.

I fingerpaint with the mush of my own brain.
This time the colonies sail away into the dark
carrying an alphabet we used to recite
when the pretty sun came in the classroom window.
No one’s been born since the animals knelt to pray.
I draw your face in every cell of rain.