“There’s Ransom in a voice—/
But Silence is Infinity.”

~Emily Dickinson, poem 1251

To the swell

before

sound,

 

the bubble-up

 

of what she meant

 

but damn

that syllable

 

got stuck again,                                O

 

before ing

so when she goes

 

to sing

a plank comes out

 

on which she’s told                                      to walk

 

but hands bound

 

can only wobble

between deck

and the sea

of her beautiful

 

idea

 

now a speck

disappearing

 

into the dusk’s

silver          current

 

where twin-slunk

with the sun

 

her true intention

will be kept,          pressed to pearl-

 

silence.                                                                     And, safe.

---

Lauren Goodwin Slaughter is a 2021 NEA Fellow in Poetry. Her second collection of poems, Spectacle, is forthcoming in Spring 2022 from Panhandler Books and the University Press of Florida. She is an associate professor of English at The University of Alabama at Birmingham where she is Editor-in-Chief of NELLE, a literary journal that publishes writing by women. More at www.laurenslaughter.com.