IN THE MANNER OF THE WORD

At the party

I watched the words, 

who came in costume,

act out their pantomimes:

    make love to potato chips, 

    one chip at a time,

    weep mournfully over the texture 

    of their own imaginary skin,

    diabolically folding napkins as if 

    each crease were a new province of evil,  

    arm wrestle with the spice and spunk

    of impassioned foreplay,

    give massages like spastics 

    in the middle of a melt-down,

    pull up their argyle socks as 

    Einsteins' solving theoretical proofs,

and thought to myself,

if only we could express 

ourselves this freely

we might put an end 

to our own charade, 

and give up playing 

dress-up for one brief moment,

and stand fully exposed, 

as if we were the word naked

standing naked before itself.