If I Could find Her and Hear Her Speak

          for Elizabeth Bishop

I would drink the words from her lips
as if they were liquid flowing,
falling to give me sustenance,
each drip calling before caught
by my lower lip,
meaning massaged until
receiving the true intent
of each phrase she is speaking,
had spoken,
or would speak,

Hoping it would continue -
every splash satisfying,
finding a spot once untouched,
where the shadows are really the body
where we stay awake all night -
and you teach me...
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was
until you taught me
to deal with the pain of
the art of losing
when I found myself
losing farther, losing faster.
The wretched man
that lies in the house of bedlam
is me - the one gone mad
trying to hear you speak.

Your voice is an ocean
and I am in hell,
held only
by the inhibition
you have broken,
are breaking,
and will break
with the next wave
of words that crashes
onto the shore of my life.

by Kevin Dublin

Email:  kevdublin@gmail.com