Sign Language

I've got a poet’s hand but a severed tongue

The best of us have started young

But years come and go like faces in a city

They're never seen again and expression wears off the page

If I can think about it, I can write about it, I can talk about it

But sentences that form in my hands never take shape in my mouth

Quotation becomes strangled strands

Of empty words in barren lands

twenty six letters are friends of mine

they keep my company on the keys

and bring to life my troubled dreams

When conversation is conservative

My words don't fit together

So we can talk in sign language

Until we figure it out

We will figure it out