The Diet

Welcome, words
that I love more than
sense, more than butter on a radish
or two bagels full of cream cheese and silky lox.

I eat you in the moments
I’ve lifted from the day.
You go down quick as fireflies.
(Were you real?  Oh, there you are, inside.)

I’m hungry all the time,
panting, mouth running with water
for rinsing them down. You are health
morselized:  get enough of you, even just a few

of the most substantial ones, and
I’m sated for a while.  You can’t call me
a glutton or a satyr for wanting you so much:
there’s no deadly sin

related to the desire for words.
They’re better than barbecue and beer,
escargots and white bread balls full of
cheese, pudding on a stick

and ginger crystallized in a plastic tub.
Each syllable a bite of time and essence,
I gobble freely, sit back silent only when
you connect within and fill me up

until I find a way to bake, fry,
roast what’s in me and feed others
with you.  A feast within, a feast without,
welcoming, welcomed, breakfast lunch and dinner

and snacks in between, I grow fat
upon you, my sustenance, my provision
in the famine years, my generosity when I am flush.
Words, crumbs of words even, words.