I knock on white space to speak,
pour Black ink like blood
to mark meaning on a blank page.
The page, pregnant with thoughts,
bares words and more words
each line like Night Jasmine,
Gardenia, or skunk
spread as Magnolia leaves
wind blown in early fall.
Ideas take flight,
whirl with hurricane force
or fall flat, silent like
the eye of a hurricane,
a false end to furry
where words return
whipping meaning drunk
with images flowering,
like the Chinese 100-day blossoming pink tree,
Dr. Fujita’s Japanese monkey-sliding smooth trunk,
outside of his window in Gentilly Gardens,
what we call Crepe Myrtle
with fat-bellied
brown-grey Sparrows,
singing again.

Mona Lisa Saloy
from her book Red Beans and Ricely Yours
Truman State University Press, 2005
reprinted with permission of the poet