A poem about words

———

,

All the words on display

Handheld paddles made of bone

And we picked them up, set them rows to show one another

We inspect, hands on hips, nodding our heads

They’ve become smooth and rigid over centuries

But the oil from our hands, the way we squeeze them, how they roll over each other as we reach for them, we can’t help but change every one of them every time we touch it

What’s that one mean? I said, looking at scullery

All you could do was show me each row it had ever been in