The -ah was more song
& she sang beyond the name.
If the name were river,
the -ah flooded its banks.
Nonetheless, in its song
the -ah signed the air,
made the air mean.
The -ah hitched & hinged
its intimacy. Jaw-dropped,
it crooned its diminutive—
sang of class, filling
a back-kitchen at lunch
where a wok clangs
& a knife trims the gristle.
In the stockroom with her,
it kept accounts, was ledger,
an idea of order among
Schlitz & Old Milwaukee.
From tones in the pharynx,
from lungs that hung
like two clipboards,
came the -ah’s inventory.
She tied the -ah to my name
like that old trick—
tongue-tying cherry stem.
Quipu or rosary,
in the knot was knowing.
She thread the eye to sow
a threnody. Liturgy, the way
she sang the vowel
amid the till bell—
a field song over produce.
A nah, a nope, or uh-oh,
it was abracadabra,
an endnote, a colophon
bearing the binder’s mark.
It lingered incarnate
in the cold walk-in,
or ghosted the stocked aisles
where I stood over cans
of Ajax & Green Giant.
The -ah was wavelength,
a frequency-shape
like a mountain range.
It was the gesture’s aura,
& like a varnish
it lustered my name
& diminished like a mark
in the margin. It was whistlehouse,
a star’s spur, and it could scold
from the meat counter,
where she priced the chuck
with a grease pen tied to the scale.
In her long breath, the -ah
was money to burn,
incense in a Folgers can.
In the ear, as if in a mirror,
I found myself listening
& like all language
it was a grave’s treats,
singing of separateness
& tracing something complete.
Though not on a map,
its lilt echoed the geographies,
& she hummed it
simply over a thin broth
simmered daylong
& suckled on a short rib.