Laura Grace Weldon

I sing the sound the dishwasher makes mid-cycle

and opera a response to my chair’s shriek
as it’s pulled from the table.

I can’t hear the name Dwayne without saying
Deeeee-Wayne under my breath and I need to know
how your name is spelled because my mind pronounces
Alyssa differently than Elisa or Alissa.

When listening to accented speech
it takes discipline to keep from lapsing into
unintended imitation, but gawd, is it wrong
to admit I love hearing you speak?

Sometimes, watching a foreign film,
I murmur an entrancing word over and over
delighted by the feel of it forming in my mouth.

I honk at geese in the pond and moo at cattle on pasture
the way people coo at babies – because they can’t not.

I do my best to keep from reading aloud
strangely-named businesses we pass, though
my inner voice repeats what I see. How can I
not savor improbable syllables snugged together? 

Today I learned all of this is called echolalia—
the way children learn to speak— but beyond
the earliest years considered a symptom
of psychiatric disorder 

while I believe it’s a way of dancing with sounds,
juggling rather than dropping them so they spin
a few extra captivating circles. 

Echoing the songs I hear around me
is a celebration. I invite you to join me.
We only sing on this Earth a short while.

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Laura Grace Weldon lives on a small ramshackle farm where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops and maxes out her library card each week. Laura served as Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books. Connect with her at lauragraceweldon.com and on the twits @earnestdrollery.