My sister mentioned this poem at a party over the weekend, long after I’d forgotten having written it. She had shared it with her friends, and even now she can vividly recall both the metaphor and her response to it. It’s nice when a work means enough to someone that they remember and talk about it years later!
Here is the poem “Word Bubble” from 2013, slightly edited, and now dedicated to my sheeshter.
Word Bubble
My lips split,
the word formed,
the bubble conceived and swelled with silence.
The word’s skin enclosed its meaning
in slippery iridescence
and departed to float on a breath
toward your hair, toward your
ear—
but no—
it wasn’t so.
For if this word had formed
a bubble, pregnant with silence
and floating toward your ear,
then I could snatch it from the air—
but we both have heard
the bursting of this word
and our silence, once birthed,
gains a name
and remains.
The metaphor hits you like a train once you reach the ending, I love when short poetry is so packed with meaning it takes immediate roots into your heart. <3
Not sure how I missed responding to this. O_O
Thank you! I don’t advocate people getting hit by trains, but poetic trains, well — we can talk. 😉
I think I need to get back to my old simplicity. Sometimes it turned out very well.