Inside Voice

My inside voice
swallows.

It moves in
sine waves—
I think in math,
my metaphor,
transparent &
ghostlike
sashaying across
the spreading grass:
a field
that hides
the rushes—
knurls of feather
& kick;
colored earth,
flecked stone,
flexed against
instinct, perhaps
as numbers do,
ancient & unbending,
waiting
for me to speak
their name.

My inside voice
shudders,

cries calumny!
& then shrinks
back to energy,
to the hushed
moment
when I felt
the world shift,
brace,
then recover,
waiting
for the word
to be spoken
by another.

* * *

You want a story?

Ache for me &
then speak.