In brackets

Not any of these words belong to us,
not even that comma is really ours.
Nor that full stop.

I’m not sure who they do belong to;
perhaps the dictionary
or people who win poetry competitions
or layer upon layer of dead people.

In any case they inhabit us,
words of others’ choosing,
sentences of others’ design.

A horizonless grammar determining every moment
how we should think about everything,
even how to think about the grammar itself.

Secretly there is a horizon;
out beyond the edge of the wordable,
there are new lands of ecstasy that we have never before explored.

Come with me!
Set a trap,
designed so you cannot avoid understanding!

While no one is looking
see if you can’t squeeze a sentence in sideways.

Cut off the escape routes!
Then stick your foot in
and let the barbs tear the flesh from the bone!

If the trap works,
you will not have so much
to say about it.