Today’s poem comes from a prompt: What do you carry in your backpack everywhere? Pretty immediately, I thought of something Bret Anthony Johnston said at a Writers League conference: “To write our stories, we’re all using the same twenty six letters.” 

Words

I love the sound
the shape
the ha-ha-ha
the cajole
the HEY—all caps of them
I love the miscommunication
the confusion
the upset
the apology
the deep kiss of them
I love the oh-oh-oh ecstasy
the goo and gush
and tender hard of them
I love the ones
with x’s and y’s
I love their computation
the plus, plus, plus of drafting
and the minus, minus, minus of polishing.
I love the red hot glare
the flirt
the wink
the eyes in the i of them.
I love delectable bits too
the coffee
the strawberries
the whipped cream
even the lactose intolerance
in bed
of them
and okay, the smell of them
I gotta love the pee-yoo
the gassy fart
the sulpher-stinging stink
of the evil noxious ones
I love how they drip
and tap
and swirl
and scrawl
and somehow emerge out of one pudgy crayon.
yeah,
twenty six letters
that’s all I got.

©Lindsey Lane