This cannot be spoken.
It lives in the spine
it closes the throat it escapes
through the hips leaping and twitching
with the electric shock of what absolutely cannot be spoken.
As the colors begin to erupt from between the blades of her shoulders she
exists in the walls, she retreats to the shaft of light on the southwest side of the room
she is deep in the plant struggling towards the window but she does not inhabit her body and she does not exist in the words that have vanished like water into ice. It is colder than fire it is louder than wind, this silence
this absence
behind her eyes pressed closed
so hard because no one
no one can see her now.

If there were a word it would be shame
but this is not a word it is a meteorological event
it is an earthquake         it is a war.
This is too bright too blinding
5 years old       an uncle       his white shorts
the blazing       Florida       the sun     being forced
to take him in her mouth
she cannot speak

about being forced to take
to her lover
who is a man who is a woman who is
trying to resuscitate her
in a foreign country
where it is winter and it is not
1985
not Florida
soft skin urgent voice
do you know where you are
do you know who you are
(Someone has swallowed her words
far back in the screaming silence.)
She becomes smaller and curls
into the black. The convulsions
rip through like aftershocks
tears stream and finally
she opens her eyes.

Born. Again. To another stranger
begging, do you know who I am?
Mess. Mucus
everywhere. Sheets
tangled. The weather
confusing. The hour
uncertain. The day
gone or is it just beginning?
The walls are brighter than the eyes
of her lover
distressed
blue. Her eyes are
blue the man’s were
brown the man had
a beard in the heat
and a laugh too big
for the secrets she had to keep.