Twice in One Day

People who don’t read, they miss out

on those small miracles of coincidence

which jolt your consciousness

into emitting a small laugh –

or, in my case a loud, ‘Ha, ha! Now way!’aHa

(every time, I’m quite predictable like that) –

whenever you’ve heard a word for the first time

and later, that same day,

in a novel or a poem,

or a tome about political science

(if that’s the mood you’re in)

you encounter that word,

in print, for the first time.

It’s possible that this might happen

when you’re reading one of my poems,

as I’m occasionally given to the obscure or the sesquipedalian,

although usually I prefer

the language of the demotic.

What’s that? You only heard demotic

for the first time this morning,

yet here it is in print?

You’ve clearly been hanging out

with those plain-speaking poets again,

and then reading one of their poems,

haven’t you?