How We Talk
we named you Leo
but you have cerebral palsy
so even though you’re five
your mouth says Ee-haw
you call our car Keye
a passing plane, Arr
your grandmother, only Guh
though she holds out her soft arms
to you every Tuesday morning
her blue eyes wet, waiting for a word
ball, box, bunny, bat.
nobody understands you –
nor me, at my wit’s end
for ways to connect
your tongue to my heart
my heart to your future
they say I’m an angel
they say you’re lucky to have me
well I’ve learned your lexicon
but I don’t like it
it never settles – a frantic fledgling –
it pierces and rips me inside
until bullshit, I spit
despair at you when no one’s there
why can’t you talk I cry
and I make you cry.
Jess Pulver is a therapist and mother living in Maine. She has recently returned to the writing life after majoring in creative writing over twenty years ago at Swarthmore College. Her non-fiction essays and poems have appeared in The Good Life Review, Waccamaw, Literary Mama, and Kaleidoscope. In her free time, she tends a large garden.