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Picture

Articulation

by Troy Varvel



Compare my stuttering then to this:
my grandfather opening and shutting
cabinets most nights after one a.m.,
looking for anything to make dreams
of crowded veins and thought circulations
cycle into quiet pumps like our lake’s tide.
 
I tucked his daily silence behind my ear--
the only fluent sound for me,
like seeing a star long after its life. He would
talk about the moonlight funneling
through the water’s heart and the quiet fish.
He pondered which fish were stars—like him.
 
Too late now for speech therapy,
my other words skip on my tongue.
I look through the ripples to see
my grandfather in the leather chair
burning bright beneath chemical drips
that search for white blood cells.
 
Too late now for me to ask him
to stop taunting a star’s life, to accept
illumination past his time. Still I can’t say
s and t and other alveolar sounds
to tell him about the time left under
stalled constellations of salted night skies.
 
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Picture
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Troy Varvel is an MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in The Cape Rock: Poetry, Driftwood Press, Edify Fiction, Gravel, and THAT Literary Review. 

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Photo used under Creative Commons from Ryan Hallock