A dash-mark halfway between
two words not quite yet compounds
in the alchemy of the language-as-meadow.

Like a fence two words use
to connect but keep a distance,
a neutral field that doesn’t belong
to one word or another.

Or a lean-to showing alternatives
or ratios, one word suggestively
casting into the space of another word.

Or two kid goats who will say/bray,
“meet me halfway down the line
at the fence.” And then they lean in
their heads together, their little horns
like hyphens.

Are you a word
who can come to the fence?
We just need to find where
one word ends
and the other begins
and meet there.

 

From The Writer’s Guide to Common Grammar