What clichés lock us into the lives we
live? The palimpsest laid down long ago:
the whispered fears of our grandparent’s tales
echo through our parent’s approbations
to niggle at the back of our own throats.
The words we speak are never wholly ours,
but form themselves like water around sand:
molding, yet molded; shaping, yet shaped.
Too quickly we accept the languages
of those we despise: vocabularies
coil, like briar rose, surreptitiously
entangling with their uninspired lies.
Yet we are complicit, acquiescing
within the unsought for definitions.
(August 2001-April 2003)
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