Deprived Of Speech Poem by Anne Higgins

The woman who smoked
her lungs away
and the woman who had a stroke
both lost the air
for the blood
that fed the mysterious room
in their heads
where speech was produced
like a factory,
a knitting factory,
a knitting machine,
swift and efficient,
effortless, seamless,
where all the wool
shorn from
the sheep of days,
the gathering of sleep,
was spun, colored, threaded,
woven, folded,
and delivered
as sweaters of laughter,
scarves of lies,
blankets of compassion,
coats of narration,
magnificent gloves
of memory,
delicate, precise
tatting of names.

Somewhere in there,
the starving machinery
shut down.

The wool piles up,
comes out of her mouth
in clumps of pronouns
that we must spin clumsily,
knit roughly,
holding the needles
awkwardly,

dropping stitches.