Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Syntax of Distancing (Poem)

Syntax of Distancing

Your hand over my mouth
betrays that rush of I ams

irrupting deep within this red
sore throat. A vocal landscape,

littered with its consonants
and vowels you will not make

your own, collapses, high ridge
of old amalgam fillings once

more no bridge to borderlands
between teeth and tongue.

On the map of my sharp jaw
bone you sketch dropped Rs,

flat As, no me. I let you stutter,
the percussive hisses of air

beyond our lips, a shushing syntax
of distancing, not one word said.

2014 © Maureen E. Doallas

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would love to have been inside of your head when you wrote this. It stirs many memories inside of me and also taught me the word "irrupting."

"littered with its consonants and vowels you will not make your own" - powerful