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The Semicolon’s Dream

for Elias Canetti

To be useful again,
& not just for bores;

To create the pivot
that the greatest dancer desires;

To never again be knocked out cold
by that bully, the period;

To start a book
& break hearts;

To fall in mad love with its reflection,
the exclamation point;

To no longer be misunderstood,
mistrusted, & eschewed;

To be adored in return,
by the exclamation point — at long last;

To walk down the street
without being pointed at by laughing children;

To be the only thing bolded
on a page of Roman type;

To be as sexy now
as when newly invented;

To leave the exclamation point
& luxuriate in the arms of the ellipsis;

To punctuate a big plate of pasta
as a dressing does a salad;

To leave the ellipsis
& walk alone by the sea …

* * *

The sun, itself in love with the sea,
sets a dot above each wave’s alluring comma
as if to say, “This part of the sea
is an independent clause,” then dissolves
back into curling, formless ocean.

—
Jordan Jones, author of Sand & Coal and The Wheel, has published in American Poetry Review, Fiction International, Gargoyle Online, Heaven Bone, Review of Contemporary Fiction, TYPO, and Vice Versa, and in the anthologies What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop and Pipe Dreams: The Drug Experience in Literature..

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