This Song is Made of Ideas
     

Holding your fingers, I make them a song
not of words, but ideas. You are against

this unnaming, but nothing speaks
better: rough scrub on my palm, turns

through my hair, arches of flight
down my back and this, your third finger,

now naked, still wearing its ring
of light shadow against your summer

tanned skin. Where are the words
for this? There are none. We have been

our own unnaming, we have done it
like this: the idea speaks first (Shall we go on

inside) and the words not at all,
but with their hard grip and coax

hold it hot to the bed by slim wrists,
tickle its ears with bare breath.

Surely, this you believe in: that was
the bed where all lexis failed me,

it was the song written before we
had language. And after? Real speech

wears both bands at once. The ring under ring
once removed by your hand:

that was the idea. We'll replace it,
you said, and those were the words.

Copyright © 2007 Elizabeth Langemak All rights reserved
from Crab Orchard Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission