As if the rain could fill the spaces in
her heart, she liked to go out in the rain,
walk like the wind the trees make when they move.
That is what she believed when she was little,
that the trees made the wind,
that they would blow up a big storm some time
and carry her away, on the back of a giant bird.
And she would see mountains and never hear
words again. She had grown afraid of words,
what could be done to them, how they could be
slaughtered with the change of a syllable,
cooked and served and eaten in one swallow.
As if that swallow could fill you like rain
fills the rivers, fills the trees.