KEIRA LYNN DODD

Vocal Chords

 

I let you pluck my strings,

two at a time.  I quiver

longer than I should.

The sound dies, but still

I shake.  You linger

in the inside, where

chords are made. 

You reach again,

an unsteady finger,

unschooled in how

to harmonize.  I collapse,

a jangling mess of tissue.

Music spews from my mouth

in a minor key.

I choke on crescendos

as they pour out of me

onto the page.  The notes

splatter like black tears

on the measured bars

of your sheets.  They are

my tears, but I let you

take the credit.

With each chord,

you are learning

how to play me.

 

I am pulled by the strings

into a new genre.

The discord becomes
intentional. My heart
thrums to stirrings

that begin in an even

deeper place. 

I pray for the silence

that must follow death,

but then you switch keys,

and I’m trapped in a web

of sound that tightens

around my throat.

My mouth is no longer

the organ that sings.

My whole body pulsates

to the rhythm of your voice.

You no longer need hands

to stroke me, to get me

to sing your tune.

 

But I’m not really there

beneath your searching fingers.

I let you write me out,

solidified myself

into a sound you

could understand,

but you’ve held

the note too long,

giving me time

to steal it back.

It feels shaky

in my hands,

but the longer

I hold it, the more

it becomes mine.

 

The strings snap,

the chords break,

and I realize

I am free.

The world

changes.  Colors

appear, fluting and trilling

like birds.  I’m still shaking,

but with power.  I’ve left the ground.

I’m flying higher than the highest note

you can hear.  I can’t tell if you are waving

or calling me back, but you are quickly becoming

a dot, and I am filling the sky with a ribbon of song.

 

Soon my voice is everything.  It expands outward, a beautiful

cacophony of sights and sounds, and still I sing.  I sing until the song

engulfs me, and I lose myself in it.  I lose you, too.  I’m climbing higher

and sinking deeper and deeper, drowning in the song, until song becomes silence.

 

Together

we resonate

in the after-glow

of something

beyond words,

beyond music

beyond art

beyond anything

we could make

with just our own

tongues.