June 7, 2011

tell me

Words like a path of gemstones. Letters clutched close,
money in our hands. Murmurs into a phone, a note placed
bedside, a name inked on a palm, fortune cookies a dose
of instruction to shake us back to center, a mantra traced
like a labyrinth until the pain eddies, t-shirt wisdom, a coffee mug
etched with a quote from Emerson, a slip of paper bearing
the first tentative lines of a song, the vow after a ring is dug
from the front pocket of a stiff jacket. Tell me, which is more daring,
the sentence or the silence just after, when the body tilts and leans
in to believe it. It’s faith, not words, where the story begins.