Born unhealthy
never bruised
from the outside who would know?
the script runs, ticker tape without parade
bleeds over page
paper makers who grind words flat
pinch their rabbinical noses and laugh
huffing ink turning to night’s best epitaph
words words words
what if no language were taught?
gesticulating without benefit of lamp
deaf to injury, blind to plight
what if I shut you in a box and told you
start over, be something else
when your cocoon matured and sticky with life you reemerged
what would you choose?
if not language then
how to describe the pounding of our skinned hearts
pummeled by trespassing probiscus
or fear or loss or something beyond vowel and verse
such as it is
greatest emotion has only, a mark within person
no color no lines no regular interpretation
I put your citrus fingers on my shoulder
stay the curve, feel the hurt and rhubarb joy
rising and falling collapsing bestowing
levitated notions buried and choking
no accent no ethnicity we come from no place
we are no one
in a world sucking through graceless cherry straw
the fervor of acquisition and absurdity
our stage unheated flat and spartan
we learn no lines no mantra, no soliloquy
the actor stands and reveals himself
without pretense, wig and powder
shining underneath a hot summer pulse
blue raven turns his glassy eye
in shuttered shift of crimson cloud
toward cloth moon and catches hare’s quiet
spring
into infinitum and beyond boundary
speak to me
speak to me
speak to me
use what you have within