Kristy Bowen
ANNA BURNS THE DICTIONARY
Harder than you'd think,
this letting go of language,
how to understand the body
without wrist or ribcage,
the pale equation of
throat divided by eyelash.
And now, forgotten the word
for heart, as if we needed it,
while the vernacular
surrenders to something
like circumference.
How do we describe the movement
through metaphor, how water
is taking the house floor by floor?
How we mistake our limbs
for armoires and wicker chests,
while vagueness rattles in the architecture.
Here at the fulcrum of summer,
the scant atlas speaks of Philomela's
tongue cut like a tightrope, her inability
to conjugate the word frighten.
I can still conjure the sighs
of dark skirts and stockings,
but, sadly,
cannot say the words.
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