Words can speak life
into a person’s soul
but sometimes words
are only silent syllables,
empty vowels mouthed
between lame consonants
not knowing where to spit.
In raw personal disaster,
how can anyone find words
that won’t do more damage
to an already fragile psyche?
Shame, blame, trite phrases
prove how small irretrievable
words only multiply misery.
Words elude both tongue
and pen when faced with a
child’s death by miscarriage,
accident, suicide; Language
languishes in presence of
slow painful suffering by
cancer, AIDS, dementia.
Who has an answer when words fail?
a poem in my pocket 