Here is unshaped breath. Can I rename this sleeping air? This sound is an ocean, older than voice. It still hisses from unsophisticated throats. You mistake my interest in phonetics. Be still and I’ll lick the turmoil from your lips. An aspirated phoneme isn’t enough to prepare me for success. It isn’t enough to decide I’m worth loving. It isn’t enough to build a tower of ways to make you smile. But let it introduce me to laughter, all our exhales of infatuation. If you can be a half-heard whisper, I’ll leave nothing under my tongue. What do I call a hunger for your throat if I want to leave you undevoured? There are so many ways to rest against your larynx. None of them begin with H.
Talk to me about the letter H
Last updated on December 6, 2021
Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet and editor from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Treaty 6 territory), where she lives with her family and a judgmental tuxedo cat named Miss Bennet. Many years ago, she got a B.A. in linguistics that she currently uses to write love poems. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Moist Poetry Journal, and You are a Flower Growing off the Side of a Cliff: a chapbook about mental health and resiliency (League of Canadian Poets chapbook series). Her first chapbook, unless you’re willing to evaporate, is available through Prairie Vixen Press. She often tweets micropoems and creative encouragement as @milkcratejess.
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