Worded

by Robert Rothman

I say the word is newborn each time in mouth, alive
                              and kicking, struggling to get out of closed
          confine, swaddled in blood and mud of

making. Big-headed, squeezed between the bones of
                              having been said and too unformed to survive
          earthly air, it bawls and wails and cries and

howls. Bear it, born it: ugly duckling or cygnet. No
                              mother ever disowned her flesh, and who
          are you? I say silver tongues are suspect

and golden one illusion. Birthing is messy business,
                              with distended cheeks and hesitating tongues
          darting in and out of dental stops. Stutter-

mouth, stammer-sayer, stumbler-bumbler: the push
                              and pull, the glutted glottis pressed to extremity
          by flood of heated sound, a mess of inchoate

verbs and consonants coalescing. If I am not tongue-
                              tied, if not stunned to silent pregnancy of
          apprehension, if not stopped dead in my

tracks (read come alive), if not struck by lightning
                              (think your eyes), if not lost for words
          (meaning found), if not open-mouthed hanging like

a harvest moon in the eastern sky, then
                              miscarriage and still-born my progeny, and
          death-breath I issue. Given voice to sing

and hymn the mysteries, to name the ten thousand
                              things, to conceive and beget Word, the
          offspring of world and self bedded in the tangle

of invisible embrace, let my mouth open wide
                              without censor or censure, and the awkward
          never-heard, never-seen-before come

forth. Bring the scepter. Make the signet
                              ring. Crown me. Have the bell ringers
          ring, the town criers cry out: Worded I am.