Amnesia

It is about speaking the language

Of the people

Who stripped, beat, and killed you

And learning to love it

Telling yourself

This is the only language I have known

This is the only way I have walked in this body

     In which I have lived always

And this town, these people …

It has never been otherwise.

But something in your bones remembers

Another tongue        throat         song

Curves of another landscape

     Tributaries of tears flowing over and through

     A rough terrain of dried over scars, wrinkles, corpuscles

    

Memory etched in body

     The grace of strong, gentle hands tugging at roots 

     Underfoot, white fur rustling in moonlight

From below somewhere

A slow low moaning, soft

At first then reaching the pitch

Of scream so high

No one hears it

Its echo catches in the trees, falls into

Velvet pools and drowns

As night gradually sets and

     You wake to morning

Wrapped tight in a

Blanket of bright white

Tongue swollen and thick

The sound of grinding then

The swirling rich bitter aroma

     Of quick caffeine forget

© Jane Park


Published in Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia and The Austin Project, edited by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Lisa L. Moore, and Sharon Bridgforth (University of Texas Press, 2010).