And the ER only played the news but what I’ll recall later is when I awoke
from the seizure my husband said I was like a new
born baby opening
its eyes and after I wondered if childhood is also a disability. I told
a doctor my tongue tasted of baking soda. That was his language.
Really it was as if a cold white tulip was filling my mouth. I understood
how adults rob children of their language, silence it of original signs.
Early in the morning quiet I thought
of oracles,
induced states, of entire townships talking through one body and calling
it religion. I read
a student’s plagiarized paper, I expected to receive a bridge to monologized
desperation and instead was given an echo of insistent error. A bird
outside my office window mimics another’s music
and I break a cycle, I think of how my grandmother can
only call what happened a spell. I unlearn,
envision the clear alphabet of help.
Candice Wuehle is the author of the chapbooks curse words: a guide in 19 steps for aspiring transmographs (Dancing Girl Press, 2014) and EARTH*AIR*FIRE*WATER*ÆTHER (Grey Books Press, 2015). Her work can be found in Tarpaulin Sky, The Volta, the Colorado Review, the New Orleans Review and Juked, among others. She is originally from Iowa City, Iowa, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Candice currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas, where she is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Kansas.
Eunoia Review 