A noun’s a bridge – here to there.
I’ll start across and already stutter:
a sentence without its head is lost –
what I’d hope to tether me.

The modest adjectives, adverbs here and
there, dissolving, too. Their waywardness
makes me stupid. How to say it?
Open-mouthed, abashed, ashamed.

I urge the verbs to get me started.
Tussocks mark the thoughts I’ve lost.
I hunker in the stubborn silence.
Intention braids the shallow delta.

The current shifts: your steady voice,
the face I know, your palm in mine –
long enough to slow my breath.

What was blank, beyond recall, returns, 
a moment of words that says 
what I mean – a child again, eager
to join the raveled conversation.