Desire As Translation

Do you remember the language?

A sweet speaking in tongues,

Ancient talk in its boldest version,

Grown from the place where the tendrils you love

Fold and unfold in their persistent delicate touch,

Grown in the old garden that is such a mess of time

And rendition that your temper threatens to shovel it under.

But you don’t. Instead you study the earth. You listen.

Their language is muffled and you are barely part of it.

Desire as translation: Who is pronouncing your name,

Pronouncing what will never be your name? You are both

Alive and dead to the interpretation. Your heart floods.

Bottom is what you want and what you will never touch.

So you drift, handing over your own nimble, tough story of need.