Contributor: Jocelyn Mosman

- -
You are every stretch of tendon,
wrist flexed, then relaxed,
the curvature of a hand,
steady and bent.

You are brain stem activity,
words and pain both flowing
down your spinal cord
until it is too hard to write.

You are mouth and throat,
soft spoken and fragile,
swallowing blood,
choking back heart.

You rely on the body:
hand to write,
spine to stand,
mouth to speak.

As you collapse inward
like a burning house,
all I can do is hold sound
the walls,

resist the destruction,
or flee.

I will not leave.
I will not watch you burn.

I will guide your hand,
until words flow past
unspeakable pain
onto open page.

I will stand tall beside you,
become sturdy,
lumbar vertebrae,
help you climb and stretch.

I will give your voice legacy,
as student, as friend,
next generation of oral tradition
passed hand-to-hand like communion,

but when the house smolders,
the skeleton screams,
the joints crack.
I smell smoke.

As body relies on body,
I rely on you.

I will not leave.
I will not watch you burn.


- - -
Jocelyn Mosman is a junior at Mount Holyoke College, majoring in Politics and English, but she will be attending the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK this fall. She will be competing in the National Poetry Slam this August in Oakland, CA. She has also published two volumes of poetry and is currently working on her third.