The Tuesday Poem

The Principal Fund of Words

If you do not write my name every single day,

your hand be crushed by the vice of sentences!

Twisted, the mouth

with which you mumble the words!

Whipped up the word

that opens the wolf-traps

between you and us!

And may they never be healed, those wounds of yours

that you wash with my tears

brought into town in a barrel!

And may your face

be forever smudged in the windows

if you do not chisel day in day out

my name on the fuel-flask of love!

Oh, yes, and if you fail, when asleep, to write my name

with sweet and delicate

letters, as when we started out,

I shall sew up your lips

seriously, with catgut!

* Linda Maria Baros was born 1981 in Bucharest. She has lived in France since her late teens and has published many books in Romanian and French. She is a featured poet next month in www.corkpoetryfest.net