silence like a blanket, catching on the skin,
muffling, smuggling sounds away from ears:
oh your words, your scorn, your purity.
i am putrefaction, disease, disuse, desire!
the stinking retch of passion, night-before, night-after.
if i spoke, would you hear—would you listen—
the task of millenia,
for all the words i wrap myself in.
mummified with verbage, wrapped and rolled
into a cocoon of self-repetition.
an old army blanket, stale wet wool, the pressure
of preserving oxygen in that environment.
too late, i am permeable, i am pregnant,
i am dilated and losing self
and reaching that pale, peaceable purity.