Untitled (for now)
She thinks she has trouble understanding hope,
questioning even the shape of the word.
She thinks its simple form incapable of
supporting the bulk of its meaning.
Watching her lips kiss the air in familier shapes,
producing the familier sounds, of this familier word.
You can see her tounge treat it as forgain, revolting
against its formation in her mouth as if she may choke.
Her throat unwilling to swollow a word
that once meant 2.5 kids.
that once meant a dream house on a cliff near the ocean.
that once meant a white dress and a chapel.
that once meant winning the lottery.
She fears she may choke as she chokes each night
while crying tears that scatter like jewels.
She wants to gather them up and string them together
like rosary beads, she wants to cry a prayer.
So that God might take away the night when hope was taken
form her.
The night that changed the definition of the word man,
to something more like fear, more like anger.
The night that made friend mean assaliant,
made sex mean violent,
made self mean victim.
She wants to cry enough that to build a monument
so God might take away the sunday afternoon in hospital.
When a doctor took away a mass of cells she knew were
meant to be a daughter.
She wants to cry jewels till they flood heven like an ocean.
The only gift she can give to the daughter she would have called
Hope.