Words give the tongue wings.
Consider spangled, calabash, chiseled—
their mystical conduits,
like puzzle pieces,
snapping into place.
Say enigma, Osage, interwoven,
cobalt, Camelot, talisman—
they take you to an imaginative
place far from the small
space you inhabit.
Think nouns—portal, lullaby,
rhapsody, Pismo; adjectives—
secret, crisp, lucid, speckled;
verbs—preen and praise.
Words can save you;
they are rafts
on a roiling sea.
Putting them together is a marvel.
Taste the word pozole—
how it makes your mouth water,
bursts of tones like shooting stars.


© by Carolyn Chilton Casas.
Used with the author’s permission.