GHAZAL FOR BREVITY
A mantra sets in with just one word.
A dream can end with just one word.
A human’s lifetime of asking questions
—why?—will begin with just one word.
The babysitter fastened baby’s diaper
and made him grin with just one word.
A rude, intrusive busybody got under
the neighbor’s skin with just one word.
Tell the bartender pouring gin and tonic
“how many parts gin” with just one word.
As the crescendo builds, the wicked villain
in the film commits sin with just one word.
Teacher, you have learned over and over
that one fails to listen with just one word.
—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024
Tribute to the Ghazal
__________
Cindy Gore: “Although I had read the word ghazal in poem titles before, I was unfamiliar with the particulars of the form because I’ve never been formally trained in poetry. I became interested in learning more when poet Campbell McGrath commented about Alexis Sears’s ‘Heartbreak Ghazal’ on the Rattlecast after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.”
