Stammer


One by one I lift them to the mouth, the tongue
entwining them,
                        the five smooth pebbles

Speak now, speak now, say again.

Let the tongue know its place. This will
according to Herodotus,
                                     effect the cure for stammer.

Tongue contra world. Argot and glottal.

And memory, embabeled memory, is here
as well.
            The speech correction teacher Mrs. N

looming back to me this morning as my neighbor

in black spandex cranks her Motown
up to ten, sunshine on a cloudy

day, in her yard as she lifts her ji-tech bow, and then

the target
               bristling arrows. Memory
of the tongue depressor, then its burrow

toward the tonsils. AH AH AH E E E,

good David good David good. Stereo
even louder now.
                            Tempts, Four Tops

and Miracles, Cloud Nine Standing in the Shadows

of love. Talk when I say you can talk
Barnyard David barnyard.
                                        Bright grail

Of R. Ruth rang Randy rarely. Stop.

Rarely Randy rang. Rarely. Rarely. The stalled
train of the tongue, steaming

engine. Engine on the railroad on the winter trestle

Stalled. But then the grind and hisss and whistling
I am speaking now I have permission.

Heat Wave, bull’s-eye all the arrows bristle,

And she nods to herself. The tongue
set free, the pebbles spit down.

Speak now speak now again again.

from The Falling Hour, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1997.