~ Brenda Tate ~

      Censure

Once his mouth was stitched and sealed,
the nine court poets mocked his pain.
Instead of ink, they offered iron

until he bled the last of his lyrics.
    "You must talk with buried throat, and there
     will never again be song or light."

His only daughter cried from her chains,
    "Your tongue once called the sky to me
     and its stars are here, beneath my ribs."

The eldest master, with falcon grace
bowed to her guard, who crossed himself
before he flexed his idle arms.

She did not flinch from the whip's thin arc
or cry as it wrapped her willing throat,
but grasped and tightened the coils instead.

From his place of shame, her father braved
all twenty eyes, then gathered her close
as a folded wing. His lips convulsed

under their silk-sewn bondage. Lost,
he placed his banished manuscript
like a sideways kiss upon her neck.

Today I dig their forgotten bones
and exhume a sheaf of powder words
from a broken skull, whose speech is sand.


Copyright 2003 Brenda Tate



Her website: Brenda's Poetry Site