Poetry of Issue #7        Page 4

WONDERING ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF WORDS

Killing time on the beach, the sand
shining like small halos on my sneakers.
The beautiful lobster-hued beauty of Provincetown—
between the sea and the older rainbow houses—
has gotten me thinking away:
Why is water not called an apple,
an apple not called water?
Fill’er up with ham hocks. Would you like
some sauce on your gasoline?
I watch the gulls, sails and boats, looking
now and then at the pier where my wife
will arrive and at the lighthouse
which could have been called a darkbus
had things been different, the orangeade sun
too magnificent to be called anything else.