You cannot get the word out: movie.

The noun is somehow heavy,
language lazy as love. You want to

move through maze of mouth,
of tongue and teeth, saliva, syl-

lable, eye touching eye—to speak
the one word that wants to be said,

not because it is important,
but because it is amazing to

be able to be able to be able to
say what we know deep

in our oldest selves is possible
to be said—wonderful

to state clearly without stutter or slur
mother or early or thunder or even

movie

when all is ripe for just that
very word.

And it is hard tonight to watch
you struggle through that lonely stall where
phoneme and morpheme are in slow mo-

tion, where walls are dark membranes
and signals from shore are dull.

We cannot help, though we want to.
We too are afraid and feel alone,

but you must crawl through
or swim through on your own.

We know no way to help
you arrive at movie,
that suddenly lovely place,

you so hope to get to.