Melinda Smith #2 mothful

mothful

(after Jean Kent #1 Fly Away Names)

i send my voice after you
it thickens   sweeps soft  from my lips
it has become a dark brown
thing    a furred wing     flailing
i am freighted with
words for you  i carry them
between my teeth jokes nicknames  rules for pillow fighting
the particulars of the broken
window  the fact that stage 3 is not
stage 4   how i know about
your shoplifting charge from year 10
& still remember the precise
location of the matchbox car
i hid from you
in 1979   the great results they get from keyhole surgery these days         
they will not come out     
right
all i am is this
wrong kind of chattering
it makes me think how
after fire certain                               
blackened saplings
grow their leaves wrong that is all along their arms not out at their fingers   
like the charred bark can only
speak its cause over and over having lost all other habit   
but i can't
tell you this or anything
like this 
only cough you       
the mothdust
from under my tongue