These words have been kept warm between my palms
these words have slept under my cheek
these words have just stumbled down from a nomad wagon
and they pretend they’ve never left

these words I have kept at my bosom as a farmer’s wife would,
when they’re hungry they can be breast-fed then and there
these words entangled my ankles when I needed to be free
these words reared with passion muted like a galloping steed
halted in mid-day

these words have been uttered under gilt stucco ceilings
these words streamed in the wind in my hair
with flowers of the field
these words have mourned over shattered walls and lives
these words used to hunt and entrap and kill once
these words have caressed
with a touch lighter than spider legs on water

these words have designed wreaths
for the glory of brothers-and-sisters-in-arms
these words have tumbled
between my skirts laughing and frightened and shy
these words have had their seven lean years
and their fat years, who counts
these words, each of them
have been slit open to contain me and you at once
these words have died a thousand times
have been battered bent resurrected
these words have touched the poison of love and death
with unsuspecting tongues

these words cling and tremble like ivy
they do not open their eyes when you want
they do not close their eyes when needed
they do not remember when they are asked
these words have doubted and hated and forgotten
and loved and forgotten and loved
these words have just been unwound from my waist
these words are a prayer these words are a shame
these words are torn off like the lizard’s captive flesh
to escape

these words
mere rags with the skin gleaming beneath

words are the whole of me to you
the whole of you to me
words, less than the humblest seashell disintegrating into sand

but words they are: the best that there is
and the worst
the seed of our resilient kind

these words
I have unclasped from my Sunday peplum
before sending them to you