Where did the words go?

I saw them huddled

in a puddle, in a mass

of convoluted meaning

heads together, and glancing

over their shoulders as they whispered

I thought I heard a wicked giggle

and a sly glance in my direction

the letters tumbled o’er each other

in their merriment

Scram! vamoose! don’t let her catch you!

Last one there is a roootten cliche!

They scattered like peas across the tabletop

Metaphors and similes in every direction

Big-bodied nouns blindly charging

Verbs skittering, scurrying, like mice

Adjectives in their ambiguous cloaks

sneaking away on quiet-soft toes

I chase and pursue and threaten

but they slip ‘round my tongue

and through my hands like water

eluding logic and sentence structure

like the plague

All I’d wanted was a poem

It was going to be a long day.