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Silent, a poem by Nicole Amsler

Silent
by Nicole Amsler

My skeletal fingers tent over my chest
A makeshift cage for my aching, thrumming heart
Pain can still slide in
Like a fume, a moth, miasma
But my fingers clench, at the ready
To beat back that which threatens.
Futile dispersion.

But they do not reach, do not beckon, call
They do not beseech or even pray.
My hands only bear witness, gnarled and still.
They do not speak the anguish
Instead words perish, congealed and unknowable
A barnacle, a lesion, an ectopic pearl
The unspoken, Brailled in scar tissue.

From Nicole Amsler: Seldom a poet, I write stunningly dull marketing copy as my day job and magical realism fiction at night. I am a writer conference groupie, a middle aged cosplayer, and a book pimp. I've moved eleven times in my 20+ year marriage and Indiana is the only place I've lived twice.