Thesaurus (Not a Prehistoric Animal)
by Robert Borski
Within the paper menagerie
so strangely climed by pulp
and ink, all manner of lexemes,
cognates, and synonyms lurk,
conveniently taxoned.
Here verbs roar, nouns slither,
and adjectives navigate the space
between, the strata of clades
and opposites.
Meanwhile, logotropes such as myself
crouch in terror or awe, hoping to capture,
but not to be devoured by, the apposite
word, more than a little aware
that containment may be elusive,
if not impossible.
Fortunately, to help us corral
or eliminate le mot juste, we are
most often armed with neither spear
nor bazooka, but the simplest of tools:
the parabellum of a sharp pencil,
the blank gun of an eraser.
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Robert Borski lives in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. His first collection of verse — Blood Wallah and Other Poems — is now available from Dark Regions Press.
