. . . for several years my Lexicon was my only companion
—Emily Dickinson

cry out your shibboleth
into your homeland strangeness
—Paul Celan

Word-ridden, have
you been that way:
-riddled,
I mean, morphemes

begging to be multibegotten

at once, and, for once, always
alphabet-encysted:

are you like me like that, relieved
from sense, shot

through with it, shot through it, into it,

alpha, beta, letter-
scatter, where’s
their omega, their
z, zed?
Razed,

lexis-blazed, into-syllables-
blasted,
stressed

in

till the literal
disintegrates, no-more
unisonal, all-turned
to one bullethole, exit-
wound:
Say shibboleth, dis-
embarrassed
of your disfluence, of
assimilable sibilance.
Riddance,

riddance, have you said your
goodbyes, passage-rite-
gone-through to the sibylline,
say sibboleth, have you
been bidden like that, like me, toward some

other
and forbidden speech-way, taken at
your word,
taken by your word,
vernacular-riven, ridden,
I mean, on
the haunch of your words?