Chorus
by Terry Jude Miller
the voice that describes
my mother’s murder to the insurance man
ticks with static and feedback,
words adhere to slick metal,
then snail down the sluice,
a thick stream of black milk
an insulated voice tells my sister
of mother’s violent end, an act
of ventriloquy points my sister
to the west wall, away from blood
and blame - she is not fooled,
she knows the origin
a whisper tells me my mother
is dead, everywhere there’s falling,
flooding, freezing, like treading water
and not feeling the sandy bottom
beneath the sea that suspends me
I do not know from where the final voice
comes, it has no shape nor alphabet
and has lived forever many times
before, it has no face nor blood,
no breath nor light nor darkness,
it carries comfort on its back
in a gunny sack that once held stellar embryos,
I recline upon the air and beckon
it to sing
Gyroscope Review 37
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