Oh, if I ever use the word “reify,”
please revoke my poetry license,
slap my knuckles with a sonnet,
and search my home for literary criticism.

Throw them out; add them
to the lists of banned books.
Sit me in a plain, wooden chair,
brew me a cup of bitter tea,
and hand me a book of Bukowski.

Charles knew a poem was a metaphor –
a lover and a savior and a thief.
Reify? He’d reify your brain with a bottle.