Aphasia

one child replaces another — Frances

for Layla, Elsa for Bea — every death

punches a hole in the universe, we all

stream through, unstoppable, like rain

like snow — compensation

for what has been lost, sunlight is backdrop

is scenery, is streaming down on

riprap, forgetting is the collapse

of language’s wave function [Waldrep]

speaking on a roll is speaking a wave of

eminent elegant words from a web

where they hang for safekeeping

now the webs sag, words falter

eminent might have been pertinent

though you feel the swell of eh . . .

exigent . . . though no word comes

besides, who is left to listen?

picture an auditorium waiting for words

like a domed arena, cots in neat rows

nurses washed up, wounded, alive