Poetry, says Ethelbert, is meant to be SUNG –
But I am tone-deaf whitegirl, can’t carry a tune in a bucket.
My proofreader days full of semicolons,
          wriggling italics and round black bullets –
What do I know about making words sing?

He reads like an out-of-breath whisper in a lover’s ear,
          post-coital – or right in the middle
of a great fuck –
you can feel his lines’ rhythm all the way down.
I have always been soft-spoken, quiet and querolous
(Out loud, no-one can tell I can’t spell QUERELOUS)
How do I get loud like a preacher’s cry, a lover’s prayer,
Without my mother’s grating irony rising to choke my throat?
Without a scream of rage obscuring all the words?
Without losing language in the wail?

It will take weight-bearing exercise. Many repetitions.
Like yoga, it flows from the breath.
I may need to shout at my mother.
Just for practice.
Just to get it over with.
I may need to howl at the moon. Yes, howl –
every night from crescent to crescent,
29 separate wolf songs to build the lungs.

Singing in the shower will be mandatory.
I will learn the ways of water
that can crash or babble as the terrain demands.
I don’t know any preachers
          but I know a few waterfalls.
          I’ve known some thunderstorms
          and I have met the ocean.
The preaching of the ocean is a sonnet that keeps starting over –
The sermon of a cloudburst can reassure and terrify
          with the same one word.

I don’t yet know the tornado’s tongue –
I can’t unchain the voices of snow –
But the blood from my pen moves a little faster.
The muscles in my breath are beginning to show.

You might want to back up –
Keep your hands near your ears.
This may sting a little.