Spoke

For every language, a landscape: Park
your car there, one says, pay me. One is an alpine lake

& your thin skin, cold traveling your bones
like a bell. One, cracks in a palace wall, one cobblestones,

here smoke, a cord of wood, one a crowded train
flagging at the tenements, clothes lining

the sky red. Another is a bowl
of horse flesh, a fish you must eat whole,

eyes, cheeks, some beer to wash it down,
you the honored guest. A furrowed brow

should you refuse. Some are locked gates.
Some offer all they have when you recite

hopefully thank you, good afternoon, please, where is...?
One is the wrong shoes. One holds up its fists

as if to fight. Head of a man, frieze of lions, all
museums of your wordlessness. In these hollows

you filled yourself, rooting to one world: your year-old
mouth made apple, a line of trees, its alphabet of crows.

Copyright © 2007 Erin Malone All rights reserved
from What Sound Does It Make
Concrete Wolf
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission