Alessandra Lynch

 

 

Two Voices: [Why aren’t you speaking to me?]

 

Why aren’t you speaking to me?

-- the eldercat

 

caught a young rabbit…

 

When?

-- last night inside the electric light

    of the sturgeon moon -- full and veiny blue but distant.

 

Are you afraid of Memory -- ?

-- how so?

 

How it sinks, anchoring nothingness, every pore widemouthed before it

-- does it want to undo us?

 

It wants to reveal us

-- harm harm harm harm ALARM

 

We can walk gently there

-- only if there’s a forest

 

A forest and a darkling stream, yes!

-- why are tears straggling down your face?

 

Do I want to be the darkling stream?

-- no

 

All the stones their little faces downward turned

-- you’re speaking in morse

 

I’m speaking remorsefully

-- you’re human after all…

 

Nothing is sacred about us -- only what is between us

-- And what we convey. How we link air-to-air

 

With the finest of ease -- how we fly, linking wings with the wet hills of sea

--now I am speaking to you

 

Every voice a bee

--starved for a throat-scorching sweetness --

 

And now I can hear your velvet burr

 

 

 

A. C. Grayling

Ferris Jabr