My Amanuensis

she swallows words falling from my
mouth in an attempt to find God —
all of them dummies, some of us
ventriloquists mating silence.
she owns pharmacies of gray words,
all of them not hers. word broker.
how in the name of gutters can
stuttering in mandarin be
translated into multiple
shapes of traveling water?
she listens like pictures hanging
off the walls cracking in
prison
churches, mosques, toilets and graveyards.
sound takes shape from tongue and love.

Younglan Talyoung