2001/outloud

You speak your hurts
out loud to the room,
as though it will do
any good,
as though anyone
is listening,
as you have for years,
calling it words
like healing
and transformation,
but nothing changes
except names
and dates
and places.
Things let up now
and then,
a breathing space
between labor pains
and then the next
wave comes,
all but indiscernible
from the last.

(Sunday)6/24/01