Translation
       

To speak to Moses, God
put a stone in his mouth, put on

a sackcloth of verbs (want, need),
cleared his throat. Cried out.

The same way the meadowlark
uses five notes to call us

back to the burgeoning world,
or the burkwood

near the hospital doors
whispers of my father, the unbearable

softness of his face and the bright up-
rightness of his body: a feeble house

for what will live forever.
The same way the ghost enters—

humbly—the brittle hardware
of our bodies, or hidden fires hum

in all the wires of the house,
shuttling what we live by. It's

how translation works,
conception. Not St. Elmo's Fire

but a light bulb. That's why we kiss
with cracked and speechless mouths,

why the captured lark is silent.
That's why the bush burned.

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Copyright © 2019 Sunni Brown Wilkinson All rights reserved
from The Marriage of the Moon and the Field
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission