It's the words
reaching from the glossy
of a magazine page--
poetry pushed in between reviews
that made me tingle again
here in this institution
meant to save me
and the other wayfarers from themselves--
minds turned in wards
hearts poked and prodded
just enough to leak like a flood.
It was this magazine with two poems--
Sophocles returning to beg;
an insufficient hearth;
the image of an owl
that struck
for the first time in days
a strip of nerve
igniting life.