AS IT TURNS OUT Poem by Barbara Köhler

I've no say in it everything's
ready-said for me I like turns
of phrase that transform fixed
sentences between walls spaced
out into unruly spaces a place
not known: the unknown a woman
an ‘I' a voice given to speech
a resounding body taken at its
word grows hands that are mine
to take hold of an incantation
& when I stand by this word it
is my entitlement reaching out
it meets you half way it comes
and goes between us the speech
the stillness, space, composed