By Anita Tanner
The teacher-cop with chalk
directs traffic
for sentence diagramming
while we speed nouns and verbs
between white lines
to park in place
on black asphalt,
a few clauses or phrases
second-storied up
on tripod stilts
we slash across the board,
spots for words like stalled autos
in a parking lot
They sit there revving their engines,
ready to race,
driven by our desire,
to control, maneuver, manipulate,
stressing, expressing
how hard we fall for words
and their boisterous motors
before we learn
their chrome-grinned
unpredictablilty.
