THE VERBLESS

How did you lose all your verbs? 

I ask him and since he cannot tell me, 

he begins to gesture, points to my kitchen, 

the stove, the old broom, shaking his head.

Ahh! Many verbs you left behind at home;

I try to translate his verbless intent.

Your wife and daughters are sweeping 

leftover verbs into a pile they cannot read, 

hidden behind a door, next to the stove,

where they are protected and preserved?

He points out the window toward the beach 

where waves break, break, break, a restless

gray sentence without end. Ahh! Some verbs

sank on your perilous journey, many more lost

among the murdered and the drowned.

You still hear them scream in clear calls

against the smugglers and the storms.

He lifts my hands to his temples. Ahh! 

Other verbs you lost track of in your memory. 

Life forced you to abandon the joyful verbs, 

the cool, strong, and the needed verbs 

until your tongue became a migrant too.

PUBLISHED IN STONE POETRY QUARTERLY

NOVEMBER 2022

(Also accepted into Aloha Magazine and Yellow Arrow Journal)