Oh Jenny

I need this to be loving. I need to tell people
you're a prolific, articulate writer. And yet, you write like:

Moths cast from your fingernails in bunches
of flickering madness. The wings of these insects
each have a texture that is a different braille.
I find myself rubbing the nubs of my fingers
together testing for languages.

I need to mention your Crohn's disease
and that you have both kinds: one is
made up of ulcers blooming on soft tissue:
intestines, mouth, eyes; the other is made up of
thin worms lengthening there
among the blossums.

For all the details recited to me
(guts cut out, digestion routed and rerouted),
you don't talk about the heft of the pain.
This silence is like the cicada's wings now
embossed with screed.

Do you know about the cicada rattle?
It's an enourmous din among the trees
-- the forest is a sustained eruption
every 17 years. While the quiet moths
are the tablets of your ordinary languages,
the cicada's amber wings litter the ground
and that amber is the same color as your eyes
when you look up and still
you don't speak.

Copyright Louise Robertson