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                                            Were we twins earlier

we might have saved the other from learning to speak,

to speak dead, to speak dead romance, to speak dead romance

languages. Utter embouchure. The aftertaste of hurt knots the tongue,

an unripe persimmon. An echo tumbles from the mountain range

of a French horn, hunt long finished, rabbits interrupted

by bullets. Then skinned. Then opened wide. There is no translation

for rescue save breath. How we speak to and only to each other.

By the routine of lung. After years of half-formed, airtight Hebrew

the lonely heart's grammar relaxes, allows one vowel. U.

Idioglossia

Ian Williams

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