I found my hand in another’s pocket and
cursed myself as a fraud until I learned

every poet unwittingly steals exclamation
marks to grind into their verse. You can spot

such imposters by our legs, two, our hands,
two, our eyes, always searching, searching,

wide awake at four a.m. pawing through
our Shakespeare to find that line that maybe,

perhaps we have appropriated and run
through our chop shop so only we will

recognize it. By now, All 170,000 words
in the OED have been flogged to confession,

and we spend our hours just rearranging
them the way children with toy soldiers will

until they win a war or naptime arrives.
I must confess I win few wars, and at naptime,

my crimes doth keep my drooping eyelids open wide.

 

Tom Barlow is an Ohio author who dreamed of having unlimited time at home to write. Now, he is choking on his dreams. His work has appeared in journals including The Stoneboat Literary Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, Harbinger Asylum, Heron Clan, The Remington Review, Your Daily Poem, and many more. More inforation: tombarlowauthor.com.