Anatomies

When mum says flowers she doesn’t mean flowers.
She doesn’t see flowers.
Tongue long unfastened        
from mind,
intention baffled.
 
Anatomy of rose & hydrangea, 
unpresent;
the expectant carpel & stamen,
unmet.
Stigma stem style
protective sepal—
all unperceived.
 
When mum says bird she doesn’t mean bird.
She doesn’t hear crow & blackbird.
Rattle of throat, click of beak
are mine not hers.
 
Trilling arpeggios no longer enthrall.
 
(I, on the other hand,
speak Avian. Every morning
sliding
pitch & scale
summoning my own, tireless).
 
Wing & underwing,
feather & flank,
crest & lore—
all
unseen, unneeded.
 
Cathedral, she says.
She means brush, says my brother,
skilled unriddler of her words,
her ghostspeaker, untier of tongue
rushing
to overtake her voice—
splicing
speech-sound to thought:
unsealing
mouth
unmumming
words