Angie Ebba
ON —, WHERE I LOSE MY WORDS BECAUSE OF X
I place Xs and —s in poems,
placeholders for language I’ve lost.
I point and gesture,
become master of the pregnant
pause,
buying my brain time to search for words
that play hide and seek with my tongue.
My kids laugh when I forget words,
gesturing towards the kitchen
while telling them to get a snack out of
“that big thing that’s cold.”
I laugh too,
joking that I am going to become fluent
in interpretive dance.
But at the register at Safeway
I tell the cashier:
“I need some —,”
(insert waving fingers here)
(insert awkward giggle here)
“...some —, some
of that stuff that gets hot?
You take it camping?
It makes flames?”
And I’m no longer laughing.
Each — and X feels like a piece
of me
gone.