What’s in a Name

She changed her name
though in her mind
and on the page
it stayed the same.
The frisson of a
newer sound to say
for baying at the moon
or keening at the
softer mounding tunes
of water on the sands
lapping at her feet.
She feels the pulse
and beat of heartsounds
tapping out a rhythm.
She puts her hands
and meets her ears
her head a
hoary seashell now
roaring of her moment
and her fears
that cross the lake,
that hints and takes,
that makes and washes
usedtobe along in rivulets
glinting in her memory.

No one else to know
or places to be traipsed
or flowers to be
smelled and placed or
plaited in her hair.
It was like that time
she felt unshuttered
gainst the primalmale –
the roar – the bellow –
the desperate twins
leaking through the
paperthin façades of
impotence and rage,
but in her mind
and on the page
they stayed the same.

Her holy honorifics
dance upon the beach
parted by the waters
and latched entranced by
silvermoon in darting slivers,
catching all her yesterdays.
The fractured yearning
arcs of hope that strayed
and fell upon her
early tropes of learning.
Stationary too survive
their seconds never traced,
or called, or shamed,
though in her mind
and on the page
they stayed the same.

The mother of her life
rejects primeval ooze
and strife and
with a knife cuts
cord and blood
and all connection
to the past.
Her legacy a
lasting shortened story
for the others of
her kind to know,
perhaps to ken her name,
or at least to show
that in her mind
and on the page
it stayed the same.

Listen to a recitation of this poem here…
What’s in a Name (Recitation)

For a very brief explanation of this poem, you can find it here…
What’s in a Name (Explained)