My heart is filled with phrases

that dazed in their day, words in canny

order, solving clouds and mazes

of blundering expression. Company

is what they keep if not currency:

quaint as “ain’t,” jokey as “golly gee,”

they fill a page of antiquated slang

on my screen. Clearly someone young

compiled it, who had a good laugh

with a friend (someone on the staff

even junior to them?). For me,

there’s nothing I take more seriously

than safekeeping the English

that died early, and left me rich.