Autumn 2006
Free to Fail
A small poem she is...
plain-looking and unable to catch
the meter of her breath.
I found her wandering
the amusement park
of harsh critics.
She wears the sheer clothing
of poor grammar.
Her speech slurred
with loose punctuation,
as she stutters in stanzas
about brokeness and pain.
Made pregnant in youth
by the handsome lover
named writing. . . .
I adore her courage.
She will never find fame,
but found enough words
to build her ladder of escape.
To twirl and dance for me,
and the mother who birthed her,
on the bare mattress of a blank page.
She visits me again, and again,
like a nesting porch sparrow.
Knowing she is free to fail
under the light of my reading lamp.
Dudley Hiles
A small poem she is...
plain-looking and unable to catch
the meter of her breath.
I found her wandering
the amusement park
of harsh critics.
She wears the sheer clothing
of poor grammar.
Her speech slurred
with loose punctuation,
as she stutters in stanzas
about brokeness and pain.
Made pregnant in youth
by the handsome lover
named writing. . . .
I adore her courage.
She will never find fame,
but found enough words
to build her ladder of escape.
To twirl and dance for me,
and the mother who birthed her,
on the bare mattress of a blank page.
She visits me again, and again,
like a nesting porch sparrow.
Knowing she is free to fail
under the light of my reading lamp.
Dudley Hiles
Cover art by Peter Ciccariello, "Our Vestigial Language"