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Landis Everson
photo by Ben Mazer

Landis Everson

Jack, My Vocabulary Said This

The voice on the wire stops
half way
hangs.
The phone rings somewhere else
without an answer. ‘Hello,’
a voice is calling.
It shifts back and forth
wanting to call and answer,
a voice at the same time listening
not knowing who
to go to.

An accordion of air, a voice sitting
without
a ruffle of feathers.
It is like an unmating song.
Did Jack say
‘My anguish did this to me.’?
He died trying to rise
gagging
over someone’s vocabulary
broken
which can be as light on the tongue
as love
if the heart holds
(it wasn’t a bird, so he died)
its heavy tongue.

You can read other work by and about Landis Everson in Jacket 26.

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