The Desire to Speak
It’s never what you failed to say
(omission not your style)
but acts of commission only, the censor
perennially out gathering posies in the field
or anyway away from her desk,
that box full of ill-considered advice
handed out, some of it taken,
candid revelations of friends’ histories
and sexual woes, betrayals, a few beers down
passed on for no apparent reason
except the incoherent longing to speak
of real things – to cut through the dailiness,
the thick packaging in which we’re wrapped up tight,
and let your wolves howl, your inner toddlers
show their bellies, and just a touch of longing
to be listened to, to have the floor,
when you’re not that smart or funny anymore.
(omission not your style)
but acts of commission only, the censor
perennially out gathering posies in the field
or anyway away from her desk,
that box full of ill-considered advice
handed out, some of it taken,
candid revelations of friends’ histories
and sexual woes, betrayals, a few beers down
passed on for no apparent reason
except the incoherent longing to speak
of real things – to cut through the dailiness,
the thick packaging in which we’re wrapped up tight,
and let your wolves howl, your inner toddlers
show their bellies, and just a touch of longing
to be listened to, to have the floor,
when you’re not that smart or funny anymore.
Gail Entrekin taught college English/Creative Writing for 25 years and has published five books of poetry. Her poems have been published widely and have been finalists for the Pablo Neruda Prize and winner of the Western States Award and Women’s National Book Association Prize. They placed first runner-up for the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and finalist for the Frontier Open Prize, and her manuscript, Love in a Dark Time, was a finalist for both the Blue Light Prize and the Richard Snyder Prize in 2020. Poetry Editor of Hip Pocket Press, she edits the online journal of the environment Canary.
Art: Train Reverie by Jenna Lê