My Words Are Weak

They try to dissipate at dawn, yet fly

like breeze through cinder block eye sockets,

like wind through clothes-pinned socks or

threaded through a flag on a brick façade. 

Sometimes they are mechanical at best, 

ornithopteresque: just robotic wings—

when my words should instead spread

genuine feathers to lift all my skeletal ideas.  

But may my words be useful.

Grandmom is allergic to flora and soil,

so I describe for her the daffodils, 

mailing my thoughts on sheets of sunshine.

Then she imagines the digging roots

gathering minerals from rusted dirt

and lime-streaked earth.  

My words are the violet-blue tissue

of paper petals I send her,

and their caterpillar green, pipe-cleaner stems.

I describe a puff of seeds at dusk

so she can fly the evening breeze,

take off with quiet hums and delicate wings

of the garden fireflies.