Escalator of Babel

Ella McCrystle

We have words - l a n g u a g e -
I spell it out for you, though we,
supposedly, speak the same one.
Still, I stand drowning in waves at the
bottom of an escalator while you ride
safely to the top. Me, alone: at sea,
hidden in your shadow. You swing on
chandeliers, - l i t - by Mykonos' Nightlife.
I stutter and think of Demosthenes
in ancient Greece. I, too, would like
to speak clearly, if only to you.
Would putting pebbles in my mouth
strengthen my tongue; articulate my voice?
Maybe salt from these ocean waves
has clogged your inner ear. You could be
myopic like me when reading my typed
- w o r d s - as feelings onscreen.

It's not the words themselves. They've
done no crime. It's allegedly not anatomy
either. My inability to translate has
caught me in the inexplicable situation of
ocean waves; you gleeful, wave from an
urban escalator, and I sigh, mutter, curse
under my breath. I've tried to - t a l k - to
you, but you don't - h e a r - I've tried to
- w r i t e - but you don't - r e a d - the
words as clear. If I scream to you, distant
on your escalator, bouncing while I drown,
it will be MY madness that is presumed,
not static in the lines of communication.

It may be the anatomy. The feelings of the
human heart, yes, perhaps the heart is the
culprit! Yet, when I check Gray's Anatomy
to find where feelings are stored in this hollow
muscular organ of a somewhat conical form,
I find no reference to feelings among atria or
ventricles. It seems, after checking the index,
there is no home for feelings in the entire body
of a Homo sapien, not even the Central Nervous
System, which makes me nervously admit
that it must all be in my translation.
That, or you have salt in your ears.

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Ella McCrystle lives in Baltimore, MD as the proverbial "woman who collects cats." Her rabbit recently ate her Child Within. Poems published by SaucyVox, MiPo~Print, SpaceBreather, Ink, Literati Review, Epiphany, Sometimes I Sleep with the Moon, Writer's Hood, Survivor Wit, and The Writer's Cabaret. She has been scribbling notes others insist on calling poems for a few years. She howls at the moon as a singer and is known to break into Billie Holiday tunes at the least appropriate moment.