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To My Mother
by Deborah Russell

...for all that's lost
the tongue’s numb
the rhyme’s paralyzed
the poet’s shirt is threadbare,
well-worn, the comfortable fabric
of what we were - our language
how freely we speak, loose and unwound
a string of airborne, helium sentences
tied to our fingers

across a river of print
our homeland;
a place from which to view
the river within us
verbs - streaming by hundreds
black ink and sweat -


all this configures and equates,
neither here nor there
poetic attributes
 
an irregular clock-
ticks this tangle of days
in wild man's garden
i pick poesies - carry them
in a lover’s bouquet
through the long black night
of a coffin box
for both our deafening and dumb
identities
 
a white page scribbled
with red crayon – all my words
that use to be nouns
…in the odor of death
poetry seems relevant
and at night, so does God

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