Leaving the Cult of Tongues (variation on In the Garden of St. Anne’s-on-the-Hill)

…one cannot lie to an aphasiac. He cannot grasp your words, and cannot be deceived by them…

-O. Sacks

Seven fair canaries

claim my passage.

Notes of gold soaking

my soul.

A woman is watching,

never looking.

Her silver fills my spine

with essence of the silent spheres.

Lessons from the silent spheres.

Frames stretch from was

to will.

A lantern burns

in the chill.

Verses for the voiceless

from my left hand.

Its silver tilts my spine.

Precession of the silent spheres.

Lessons from the silent spheres.

Your shivers still my spine.