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HHRF
MARYANN HAZEN-STEARNS
The Invalid
Voices float down the hall
collect on the rim of her ear
Sometimes the story is mine
Sometimes the ear
isn't large enough or hasn't
taken notice of the words
on the way to whispering over
They hang on
until they've grown weaker
and weaker still
useless then fade away
as if the lips that gave them form
had never moved at all
or the throat that wrangled the thoughts
into meaning meant nothing really
As if the words were wind
blown out or fire burnt
against its own orange tongue
As if the words once spoken
were earth or dirt and having found
they had been unbidden
buried themselves
or perhaps the words were fluid
like plasma or more descriptively
a color for the sightless
which has fallen
on the edge of a deaf ear
or a swollen heart
on the wild verge of combustion.
