The Bare Bones Of It (Poetry)

These are merely notes
so I don’t forget
the ideas that spring
but slip through the net
as the day crowds in

Quick and firefly-bright
flits the sudden thought
and a scrawl of ink
has its bare bones caught
in a hurried string

spread across the page
they identify
what I barely glimpsed
as it hurtled by
briefly glittering

But the words pinned down
without fur or flesh
simply skeletal
need some fancy dress —
pen and papering

Decking out the rhyme
measuring its shape
delicate the task
lyrical the drape
fit at last to sing