by Sigrid E. Mortensen
© September 22, 2024
I want words
Rolling vowels ’round my mouth
Crunching consonants between back teeth
Alliterations skittering like skipping stones
Tripping off my tongue.
I want words
Sprouting from my ears
Vining through my brain
Weaving dense tangles
Nonsensical in the tendrils but revelatory in the thicket
Each thread the messenger
The entire tapestry the message.
I want words
Dripping from my fingertips like water
Tap
Tap
Tapping on the keyboard
Each quiet click rousing the
Tick
Tick
Tick of Grandma’s knitting needles.
Words
Flowing through my fingers like yarn
Loops and chains tugging knots from skeins
Insisting
Commanding
Patiently coaxing.
Where stern and loving intersect
Chaos must yield to order
Entropy must abate
Bashful droplets wooed closer
Closer still and
Now
A cloud is forming
An heirloom emerges lofty strong
A memory endures to drape its warm embrace
Around the shoulders of future generations.
I want words
Laboring like supernovas
Bellies growing then
Collapsing in upon themselves to cook the elements
Hotter
Denser
Before calving them into space
Hurling infant spawn into the void
Not knowing where they’ll land.
These words
Spiraling like galaxies
Spewing creations into nothingness
Photons into darkness from outstretched
Dervish arms
Her head thrown back
Laughing
Whirling
Laughing
Whirling
Her soul’s rebirth
A mere breath
From madness.