Poems Before Words

Disoriented,
You thought of the poem
You’d dozed composing.

Turns out, you hadn’t
Started the phrases
At all, not even

The ones in your head
It felt like you had thought
But hadn’t yet said.

That would be something
To compose—phrases
You’d felt you’d gathered

That were smoke shadows,
That hadn’t yet formed—
Is it possible

To think honest lines
That don’t exist yet
Before giving them

Words, syntax, rhythm?
Not a visual,
Not squiggles, but lines

Of language before
Language for them formed,
Verse pre existence.