Maybe your muttering heels
calcified these seeping vowels. Lost
habits or what’s left, fed on light and
diction. Maybe yours, they grew.

Knotwork, in the splits of sidewalks,
here: harden our utterance. Leach
loose antonyms along some jawline:
sand and gravel. Water. Lime.

Unattended handprints, things we
never thought to stroke again are here,
there in the fissures. Here you are, then,
they are saying. Have something to eat.

Maybe when you see them they’ll appear,
unstain steps that stammered, maybe then
they’ll fix the old saw. You will step on a crack
and find a poultice. You’ll listen, heal as you go.