Paper Name

 




Paper Name

 

Anything is a story we tell ourselves

about silence.

                        Tommy Orange

                        Wandering Stars

 

If our names are written

down before we are

born for sure I mis-

                heard or mis-

understood

and I loosed the unlawful one

on you.  I put 

my lips to

your lips and whisp-

                                    erd,

and you, being so 

in your skin mute

and new couldn't speak

otherwise.  And so you flew 

through  

almost two decades

with the mistaken 

name in my sinew, and it beat

its three-piece meter

in cadenced bass breaths: IN

                                    OUT

                                    IN

in blood & air to the tubes

to my lungs and muscles.  Later, 

out of wind

from my climb (all mothers

are out of breath from their

climbs) I can see you standing

                                                                                                     f           a          r

 

off & thought I’d been blind

all this time I hadn't

yet to recognize

you all those miles away.

You sent back word:

You’ve lifted up your torn paper

name, each piece folded

into origami cranes who, as soon

as they sense the heat of my seeing,

take to the clearing

clouds of your sky

and like phoenixes, brighten and blaze

and never again alight.





 

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