Ode on Dictionaries


A-bomb is how it begins with a big bang on page
            one, a calculator of sorts whose centrifuge
begets bedouin, bamboozle, breakdance, and berserk,
            one of my mother’s favorite words, hard knock
clerk of clichés that she is, at the moment going ape
            the current rave in the fundamentalist landscape
disguised as her brain, a rococo lexicon
            of Deuteronomy, Job, gossip, spritz, and neo-con          
ephemera all wrapped up in a pop burrito
            of movie star shenanigans, like a stray Cheeto
found in your pocket the day after you finish the bag,
            tastier than any oyster and champagne fueled fugue
gastronomique you have been pursuing in France
            for the past four months. This 82-year-old’s rants
have taken their place with the dictionary I bought
            in the fourth grade, with so many gorgeous words I thought
I’d never plumb its depths. Right the first time, little girl,
            yet here I am still at it, trolling for pearls,
Japanese words vying with Bantu in a goulash
            I eat daily, sometimes gagging, sometimes with relish,
kleptomaniac in the candy store of language,
            slipping words in my pockets like a non-smudge
lipstick that smears with the first kiss. I’m the demented
            lady with sixteen cats. Sure, the house stinks, but those damned
mice have skeedaddled, though I kind of miss them, their cute
            little faces, the whiskers, those adorable grey suits.
No, all beasts are welcome in my menagerie, ark
            of inconsolable barks and meows, sharp-toothed shark,
OED of the deep ocean, sweet compendium
            of candy bars—Butterfingers, Mounds, and M & Ms—
packed next to the tripe and gizzards, trim and tackle
            of butchers and bakers, the painter’s brush and spackle,
quarks and black holes of physicists’ theory. I’m building
            my own book as a mason makes a wall or a gelding
runs round the track—brick by brick, step by step, word by word,
            jonquil by gerrymander, syllabub by greensward,
swordplay by snapdragon, a neverending parade
            with clowns and funambulists in my own mouth, homemade
treasure chest of tongue and teeth, the brain’s roustabout, rough
            unfurler of tents and trapezes, off-the-cuff
unruly troublemaker in the high church museum
            of the world. O mouth—boondoggle, auditorium,
viper, gulag, gumbo pot on a steamy August
            afternoon—what have you not given me? How I must
wear on you, my Samuel Johnson in a frock coat,
            lexicographer of silly thoughts, billy goat,
x-rated pornographic smut factory, scarfer
            of snacks, prissy smirker, late-night barfly,
you are the megaphone by which I bewitch the world
            or don’t as the case may be. O chittering squirrel,
zip-lock sandwich bag, sound off, shut up, gather your words
            into bouquets, folios, flocks of black and flaming birds.

Previously published in Subtropics and All-Night Lingo Tango (Pittsburgh, 2009)