Nomenclature

By Janice Worthen

We approach things at angles

because a direct approach is an insult.

An ear is a temple,

anger a bird pulling out its own feathers

on a branch consumed by fire,

despair a fish sinking instead of rising, belly up.

Calling something what it is

by what it’s not

honors its complexity.

We’ve lost our tolerance

for truth’s true form,

for truth itself,

so we declare it doesn’t exist

or can’t be defined.

Now we will reject our own hand

if it bears that name.

Thus, we secure

various outcomes.

Murder is justice,

a whistleblower is a traitor,

war is an action for democracy.

Each not-truth raises a little flag

in a hollow heart.

Our words turn “parasite” into “superior being,”

excuse melting ice, clouded rivers,

cancerous flesh, broken earth.

Our words throw a sheet

over the mirror

so that the form underneath

appears divine.

Janice Worthen lives and writes in the Bay Area of California. She’s a regular contributor to the online news source The Alamedan. Her poetry has appeared in The Rectangle, Switchback, and her poem “Fire Closest Kept” won University of Idaho’s Banks Award. When Janice isn’t writing, she haunts the warehouse of Small Press Distribution as a volunteer.