she still couldn’t speak
after all that time she still hadn’t learnt

even after the milk
and the airplanes
and all the angry men and newspapers
pushing her inability
up into her face
she still couldn’t force
the hot aching ball of speech
past her tongue

she stared at the world she loved mutely
with the desperate happiness of an idiot

nobody had time to wait on the words
when they never came
- her face clenched in the spasm of pre-speech -
and she was always forced back
into the crippling necessity
of the other gestures
the dumb shows
that pulled her tongue
even further apart