appealing

The Maynard
Fall 2017

Elana Wolff
0:00
 
 

Hyoid

A clutch of shrubs and stand of trees on the

knoll on the way to the grave. The boy & girl
entrusted to us the moment we brought them in.

We get our moral feeling first from colour.

Let it not be read I haven’t loved enough,
I’m trying. Coreopsis, Say what you will,

your other side is violet. This, the law of

complements that binds us like a thigh.
I stand alone, lay stones on the gravestone,

clover, and a note—one can stun from nothing,

make the sun appear impromptu. We do this
with the word. & if ink is insufficient,

there is speech to turn to, and birds.

A chaffinch crosses the path and turns to crow.
Black wings flapping echo in my hyoid: bone

at the base of the tongue, unlike any other:

little wish that breaks away from pre-articulation.
It’s the story of the hyoid to enable complex

human speech, its deft manipulations.

You touched my horseshoe-U by stealth
and bent the lesser horns.