What Next? Poem by Douglas Scotney

As the e in say, pet and bet
is harder to say
than the a in pat and bat,
pretty soon
easy-goers say those es
as those as.

Textual distinction survives.

Oral confusion reigns:
where there is already a word,
now there are two
that sound the same.
In the case of bat,
there already are four,
or so,
so one more
adds fuel to the fire of wits,
who can mistake one of the four,
or so,
for a bet,
or a bet for one of the 4.

Re pet, say no more than, 'cow pat'.

There is no such thing as a naxt,
but saying 'next' that way
gives poets a pail of new rhymes
to enrich their ends:

a floor done over with Ajax
is a floor Ajaxed.
One not yet done over
could be the next.