THE LONG AND THE SHORT VOWELS

change the meaning of words

the long O in MOR becomes a cuddly

word for mom, while short vowels

as in MORRA onomatopoetic us

quickly outside to the growling

hedgehog mama whose eight

babies fell half a meter into the space

around our basement window.

Under curling blue wisteria

as poisonous as the blue moon

it calls, I kneel hoping for two long

vowels PÅ KNÄ since the short KNÄCKA

means to break something hard like a bone

or the shell of a walnut. My mother’s

walnut tree leans against the horizon

twice as tall as the house including our

chimney, SKORSTEN, which combines

short and long vowels, where the short

shores up a building and long one

weighs it down like a boulder or anchor

not unlike any woman raising children

pulling them up and pushing them down

but I grab a garland branch of the blue

rain and scour out dirt and spider webs,

my hand a holy cup slowly reaching

with every vowel short or long

lifting the soft-quilled hoglets home.

PUBLISHED IN THE CITRON REVIEW, June 2022