by J.S. Porter
(for Mark Garber)
One word,
the right word,
and Jericho tumbles,
the egg cracks.
One word
the right word,
and what is
isn’t.
Is
the one word,
the right word,
Arabic or Aramaic?
We
know what is
by what isn’t.
The one word,
the right word,
isn’t from Esperanto
too new, too artificial
no root, no guts.
We
know by echoes.
The one word,
the right word,
comes back
like a boomerang,
ah, the sound of our pain,
a, the letter of our longing.
Not
abracadabra,
mere cliche,
but
a word that begins
with what it ends—
alpha.
The one word,
the right word,
alpha.
If every earthborn speaks it
out of pain and longing,
the universe will end,
and begin again.
- published in “The New Quarterly“:http://newquarterly.uwaterloo.ca/, Vol. VIII, No. 1, Spring, 1988.
I’ve altered the punctuation slightly from the original.