Dialog Poems Worrying Words

Dean Blehert
8 May 2010

I no longer have my own words.
They’d been alive and hard to maintain,
pitted and yellowing. In each word, the nerve
was deteriorating. Having them removed
was painful, but necessary.

With my false words,
I just leave them in a glass by the bed each night
in a solution of remembered admiration
and sugar in sparkling water, and each morning
they fill my mouth with dazzling highlights.

My smile is fresh, new, authoritative,
but years after the extraction,
I remain numb.

Alice Pero
14 April 2010

Worrying poetry like a ragged cur,
nagging her bone
the poet seeks out meat, hidden
in crevasses,
bits she can crack with teeth worn down
by critics and dentists
She wonders now if a workshop with
eager young writers
might fit her with dentures,
give her a new bite