Locution/Location

She sings the letters
to my daughter, strings them
marigolds into garlands
in the order of the alphabet
E, F, G, she
tugs the haitch, taut and long
far from the breast, a letter
the length of a coast, the width
of a gull’s caw, she now carries
the haitch like I will carry the gurney
later, weightless
hammer
of feather
the letters swim with the orange petals
around & around
her, child & crone
milkflesh holme, mouthly
smelling of talc and gooseberry

When that song sills, will we
bury her in the sky
cirrus flight folded
into the pleats—riding the crest
and trench of her sari’s
weave and weft?
Will we be left
with her
haitch
a patch of ash, just voiceless & glottal
an open casket fricative
an open hatch?

Haitch: listen, I am asking you for her
tongue, wrapped in twill
flung to its thatched edge; I am asking
for a body thrown so far
it meets itself
in the mouth. How do we bury her
haitch
one glyph on either side
arm in arm
harm in harm, how will we use this
twin ruddered
throat in an open boat
home?

H circles her tea, water sunk by cream,
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
haitch floats my grandmother’s childbody, breastless
buoying, ankles cuffed
in silver, fish scales sequined on its heels
so it can stay, and stray, and swim with her
when she is restless, sugarhungry
when she is eighty and two hundred and twenty
heavy, human
cane in fist, knife in hand
in the kitchen, thrumming
haitch, haitch, haitch
the percussive hinder, the fescues
of coriander, thunder
haitch, haitch, haitch
turns the lathe with each exhale
haitch, haitch, haitch
her belly, wet with sink and soap
its damp, equatorial girth
curls my mother
into her mother, hatchet
to hammock, split and swung
haitch, the waist in two
haitch, the lips in four
haitch, a longitude’s wretch
I chart this stretch of tongue, I listen
for how her breath measures
the distance, pulls skin apart
to etch the gravity of gravidity

My daughter pouts yogurt out, plumbs
the berry, sun-smitten, filmed in milk, wades
her phonemic fen, hailing her elder, with bib and mitt.
But when this song sills, where shall we dig
us grandmotherless fools
us rudderless, us letterpoor
with drum and dread
where shall we dig
haitch, haitch, haitch
for this shibboleth of breath?
Source: Poetry (June 2020)