Susan Barry-Schulz

Articulation

nobody says your name out loud anymore       I’ve forgotten the sounds
that it makes       the gentle turn-back of the tongue        a nod to the throat      
the breathy ah       the deliberate collision of lips at the end       the plosive
rebound       every action having an equal and opposite reaction       we raced
through stupid nights       nobody says your name out loud anymore       the faces
of your tall friends slipping away        their last names gone       the beige fibers
of the carpet we lay on one New Year’s Eve in front of the TV disintegrating now
in the dampness of some Western New York landfill       what were we watching?      
I thought I would always remember        nobody says your name out loud anymore      
no one here recalls the hallowed curve of your lumbar spine       the particularities
of your loping gait             the precious angle of your sculpted scapula          your wayward
bangs       I’m not as certain of the shade of grayish-blue        I’ve stopped searching
for anyway       decades       decades pass       has anyone ever said my name out loud      
did its sibilate ooh ever cross the narrow space between your lips       and mine.

Susan Barry-Schulz

Susan Barry-Schulz grew up just outside of Buffalo, New York. She is a licensed physical therapist living with chronic illness. Her poetry has appeared in SWWIM, Barrelhouse online, Rogue Agent, Shooter Literary Magazine, The Wild Word, Bending Genres, B O D Y, West Trestle Review, One Art, Quartet and in other print and online journals and anthologies.