A Bumper Crop

Words, like weeds,

are sprouting everywhere.

My mouth and throat are choked with them,

wild fairy rings waiting to be gathered and dried.

I pick through them and press them between

sheets of cheap paper,

stuff them into envelopes

and mail them out

to anyone who’ll have them.

I’m running out of space.

My kitchen drawers, closets, file cabinets

are overflowing with words,

spilling into every nook and cranny

of the house.

Sell them, my friends say, sell them.

Finely shred them and steep them in deep mugs

to make intoxicating brews

or tamp them into exotic pipes

and smoke them to induce

psychotic visions.

No, I say.

Socrates sipped a tea like this

and look what happened to him.

The D.E.A. may bust me for

illegal trafficking.

This harvest of verbiage

has grown out of hand.

What I need is a drought

so I can winnow out the chaff,

storing the remaining grain

for the famines to come.

Notes:

“A Bumper Crop” was first published in It’s Not About Dreams (Erato/Poetry, 2014). It is reprinted with permission of Kayla González Huertas.

This poem is part of the portfolio “Salima Rivera: A Chicago Rican Poet.” You can read the rest of the portfolio in the March 2024 issue.

Source: Poetry (March 2024)