“Hello”

The sudden garland of a voice
like mild rain on a searing day;
refreshing invigorating.

It is a calm mercurial accent
Bolivia or Macedonia?

But there were so many
and “how they do vary.”
Distinct and irregular voices.

I took their lips for my mask
And played their words
like new dances for my breath.
Their garlands rooted in my throat
spoke a whispering cadence of euphoria

So when I speak
the graffiti of their lives
is scrawled across my tongue.
In all the rounding sound of my scattered vocabulary
each and every relationship utters it words

From the cradling of my mother
to the last beady threads of goodbye
not one word belongs to me.
I speak with the tongues of men
And of angels