Beth Staley

The first voice loop was an echo

Call my “I”
a shabby container
an hourglass turned
and turned information
coos and dotcoms
as in small
as in absolutely
nothing else means
anything at large
lest I break
say “Break Break”
as in protocol
praxis O please
get over it
words coming back
other third person
versions of me
scream therapy data
awkward aloud now
girls settle down
retreat those arms’
long reaching pleas
on harps within
the frontal cortex
of my brain
in the phrase
I love you
in the mouth
of a scar
on my knee
as in listen
I unlearn I
read minds anon—
hold every secret
tightly to mine
and low against
this wrecked light
from which mute
discoveries lean two
ways to hold
muster and terror
together relief plus
war cure and
sentence together hold
isles with isles
together hold planes
apart grounding those
which bring us
too too together
via voice loops
wound allover en-
shrined as in
nets caught earth
as in flower
of codes thrown
in this blue
air traffic controlling
new missions born
from whence no
more muses move
enough language it
serves another aim
outlives itself lingers
in wan airwaves
surpassing any human
reunion in memory
port station mind
dock kiss twitter
sent message this
holed up yet
far enough gone
to keep you
at the nadir
trying like loons
and off land
the first voice
loop was an
echo.

Beth Staley teaches at West Virginia University, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in literature. She writes essays and poems. Her companion essay to this poem, “Voice Loops through Brenda Hillman’s «Pieces of Air in the Epic» — Articulating the Social Lyric” also appears in Jacket 37.