By: James Aitchison

Where do words go
when you need them?
Do they hide in someone else’s
cloud, do they escape to the
fringes of the mind, do they
tease and taunt from a distance?
Are words self-powered,
self-propelled, self-controlled?
Can they masquerade as the
words you don’t want?
Are they cruel chameleons?
Can they refuse to participate in
your poem, in your story?
Do they exist in a realm
indepenent of the author?
Are they — in fact —
the playthings
of the gods?