Wordy Conundrums Filing for Bankruptcy

by Fred Aiken

take inventory of all the words

compiled into a list pushed off

into the great void

while jumping off a cliff to experience the thrill of dying and not dying

squished in between and expected to wake up

Monday and push pens into folded pieces

of paper spelling out dichotomies

blissfully bellowing a blistering bolster of

made-for-television moments cropped and readjusted

cropped and arranged

cropped and told exactly the right angle with the right lighting will reach the right trajectory to make

and vanish into thin air,

like the rabbit in the hat,

like the shoe falling off the mountain,

like the phone call waiting to connect