Urgency of Speaking
 
Wishing I had stayed on seems elementary,
but the fragile orb becoming the me of now
misses the ease of cradling into the shelf's womb,
a place made clean and even-spaced for me.
 
Clearly I remember the garbled sounds
paddling into the mother-belly, could hear the clucking
and hissing, waking to fluid, to existence.
Can still taste growing pale in books,
chalky with the savory of pages
pressed neatly around the root, swelling into alphabets
and the dead language of result
 
Speaking into this belly now, starts the prayer-cycle,
humming and chuckling to the thing, hoping
it can understand the signals, translate the beats,
find the arcane meanings.
 
Ferreting the paper dolls and fairy tales,
the curl of the last known me
slips through the lockless door,
sidles into the volumes lain with care,
wrapping with wood and fire and milk
what is left by the paling daylight.
 
Jacket snapping shut, the fold collapses
whispering a promise of no more weevils
eating the heart of the work,
the heart of the words.