1. 
I speak it Anyway 
I will break 
this Saxon speaking 
to fit an ocean 
within its walls. 

I speak a tongue 
of steel and hammer 
of rumble and noise. 

This tongue was cut 
from the mouths 
of forefathers 
in the old land 
by men who thought 
they owned our words. 

I speak it anyway. 
I speak it anyway. 

2. 
Love Poem 
there is a love more 
than can be spoken in 
a word with four letters 
walls and a roof and 
a floor. 
when we kiss 
we cannot speak. 
our mouths are enlisted 
wholly — to a love more 
than can be spoken in 
a word with four letters 
walls and a roof and 
a floor.

3. 
Ode to a Cathedral Which Married Jews
You, 
many-roomed, 
romanesque, 
ears carved of wood 
and bent on a cross 
leaning 
over us 
as we are married. 

You
have heard many tongues 
German and 
Czech and 
Yiddish and 
Austrian and 
Russian and 
unfamiliar ones we spoke 
because 
we kept our tongues 
in our mouths 
to spite many 
and worship ourselves. 

You 
provided sanctuary 
in a dark age 
when men swapped blood 
over the book 
in your walls. 
And now 
I am here 
seeking sanctuary 
in a dark age 
where men swap blood 
not over books 
not over your walls 
but over my tongue.

4. 
Night Carried to Germany 
We have lost a home. 
We have lost a tongue. 
It was not cut surgical 
with a smooth blade 

— No, their fingers dug into mouths
and tore upwards, peeling back 
our tongues to our teeth 
and cheeks collapse in 
and we cannot speak. 

The sun sets into a train car 
carries us to a land of torn tongues 
and bloody throats. 

We have lost a home. 
We have lost a tongue. 
We have not gained another. 

5. 
Refugee in a Leopard Skin Coat and Hat
Look in my arms. 
See beneath leopard print 
and golden hair 
— wrapped in cotton, 
the tongue you could not cut. 

Her wrists will not be scratched with numbers or
counted among the many broken wrists shattered
and small beneath your boot, no, she will live longer
than you. 

The numbers will fade. 
We will forget them. 
They hurt now, and they will hurt, 
but the hurt will never reach 
the tongue you could not cut.