Absence Muse

by Les

What is the real? The first
philosophical question
about the word
which seemed more tangible
than the world tangible.

The letters meaning
something. How r u?
on the cell phone screen,
text-speak on two texts
speaking, an interface
of emoti(c)ons
and w r u? I am outside
grammar’s jurisdiction,
an entry in a dictionary
as yet imagined
by arbiters of sense

and sensibility, this body
of words is you: a shower
of hieroglyphs, the aste-
risk of your kiss,
the ampersand
of your hand
the alphabet
of your hair, wet
from the rain dance.

When the real gives—oh
how it pours!