Phyllis M. Teplitz

UNSONG

Poems torn from
my eighty years,
scribbled on scraps
or typed on my Mac

now lie piled in files, stored
in drawers, stacked on tables,
copied on floppies,
saved on my hard drive.

Still, I pictured them scattered
by a thoughtless flurry
of wind,
drenched by winter

showers. All
my meticulous metaphors,
melted. My carefully crafted words,
reduced to meaningless blurs.

—from Rattle #23, Summer 2005