for Rachel
We play a game
called Mouth & Ear:
one speaks, the other listens.
It’s simple.
If your words are trees,
mine are finches,
vagrant & garrulous.
In the nest of your ear
their fledglings
sprout fletching.
If my words are fish,
yours are lures,
marvels of ingenuity—
a water-bound being’s
dream of flight.
I rise to the ring of ripples,
your radiant ear.
My ear can hear your tongue touching my eardrum.
I do like to get literal in poems.
Itf feels intrusive to comment, like eavesdropping in the ether. But this is kind of perfect.
Thanks. It was actually sparked by a photo I took when we were in West Virginia last May.