“A free-verse 20 line poem about the difficulty of language to communicate, unrhymed, in the style of John Ashbury's early poems in "The Double Dream Of Spring””

Words, those pale ladders, rickety in morning’s sleepcloud,  
Reach nowhere certain,  
Each noun bears a costume—glittering cape, plastic mask—  
And verbs bruise the air with intention,  
Too exact or not enough.  

Across the table, you speak in careful shapes,  
The syllables waterfalling softly,  
Pooling in my palms as I try to catch  
The difference between “meaning” and “meant.”  
Cloud-shadowed vowels drift away—  
There is no translation for the orange slice  
Of sun on your knuckle.  
We ask only for clarity,  
And all we receive is atmosphere—  
A slow-moving hush between gestures,  
Syntax curled like a cat around a radiator.  

Letter after letter, we rebuild Babel,  
Each spiral stair its own direction;  
I want to say the red tulip lies open outside the window,  
But it is not the flower,  
Only the approximation, flickering at the edge.  
Still, we speak—the warm failing,  
The necessary, muddled attempt to be seen.

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