Elegy for Language

When I lost the word for beautiful,

I said instead you make me sick

with your wrinkles. I said

there must be a word for this imbalance,

my inability to put form to my sadness.

I searched for synonyms

in streetlights, doctors, little pauses of weather,

punched my sleeping muscles

in an effort to remember—

and slowly the fade came faster.

Sadness. Sad. S—

soundless. A loss of precision,

my alphabet gone longing.

Soon nothing wet my tongue

and I wondered if this was my flood,

just this one layer of blueness, no difference

between shades of sky. A ruin

and then a renaming. To label my misery

as anything but.

How do you say it? I was so griefstruck

that all I could do was speak in scribbles,

whirrs ringing from my throat.

-

When I lost word

I said you make me

I said

there must be a

form to my sadness

I

punched

to remember--

and slowly the fade came

soundless. A loss

longing

nothing

if this was my flood,

just this blueness

between shades of ruin

renaming my misery

as anything

I could do

from my throat