O
       

I try not to make too many "I" statements. "O" statements, though, are another story. O self-nullification! O shattering ecstasy!

O the glory of SpaghettiOs steaming in a bowl. O rococo sky of eggshell pastels being beaten to stiff peaks by helicopter chops. O golden glow slipping from a summer radio.

O orb! O sphere! O cipher! O nought! O to be a cyclops, the better to focus upon one object.

OMG, who invented the letter O? Oh, it's from the Phoenician character meaning eye.

O, floating quote attributed variously: "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." Did Augustine say it? Empedocles? Voltaire? As long as it strikes holy awe, who cares?

O YHWH, tetragrammaton name of God. Jesus saves, but Satan, that big bozo, spends. The prize for enduring prolonged anguish is what? O how I hate accepting things I cannot change! What ruined religion for me was religion.

In Old English, O was an exclamation of sorrow. Now it can precede strong emotion of any sort or serve to address a person or concept. O dingy stucco with a twinge of snow!

O Middle English contraction of on and of: It's one o'clock, time to put on your tam-o-shanter and carve jack-o-lanterns, but beware will-o'-the-wisps and don't touch that cat-o'-nine-tails.

O descendent of in Irish surnames—there's a decent chance my last name used to be O'Rooney, but that seems like overkill.

O Captain! My Captain! Whitman is no more dead today than he was yesterday, but what feels close and what feels long ago?

O in slang is an ounce of drugs. Watch out for that weirdo, that sicko, that whacko. Take a photo of that hippo, but don't use any ammo. Get a load of that wino, writing in his steno. Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and Zeppo—what a combo, eh kiddo?

O: the sine qua non of many a poem. O essential ingredient. Oh shit, is this an ode?

O 15th letter of the modern English alphabet. O fourth-most vowel. Major blood group in the ABO system. O to be safe in a small red cell. Universal donor as nickname for God.

O little puff of extra oxygen. O ghost with the most desire to get noticed: OOOoooOOOoooOOO.

The mouth an omega, the mouth an omicron. O big O! O little death!

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Copyright © 2022 Kathleen Rooney All rights reserved
from Conduit
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission