Words

I.

Irretrievable
anchor. A rock the size of a human
heart in hand. Poisonous
plant. Your words take
root, swell
and clutch, spreading
out into the darkness
beneath our feet.
The force
in a seed! Imagine
surviving the ages, arriving brand new
and hardier
every time.

II.

It doesn’t matter what.
Nor how much. My words evaporate.
Seven and one half
lifetimes of labor
to birth mist.
My love, you ask
me to choose. Choose
between the two people I love
most. Say the word, you say.
As a child, I learned
that with a handful of syllables
the true mother gives
up her child if it will buy
its life.

Sweet Talk

It is the children who tell the truth with their naked stares in elevators. They silently gaze at me, their eyes slowly following the length of my body, ticking off each white button that ascends the front of my dress while their parents study my worn shoes or strained profile in the elevator’s cheap, warping mirrors. I meet their eyes in the glass—glances dart away like small fish in every direction. Elevators ooze in their narrow shafts slower and slower from floor to floor the sicker I get. Lately, they seem to stop between floors. In the tight stillness, my swaying grows and I fear touching their bodies. They stand so close I can smell their oils.

Metal doors suddenly slide open and the force of strangers exiting propels me forward faster than I can lift my right foot—it will no longer obey me nor can it hear my pleas. As a girl, I trusted this body when I could not trust people. Now, I sweet talk these limbs and this nervous system hiding like a mischievous God under the flesh.