From a Fischer-Price shapes sorter, I pull
chiffon scarves I’ve stuffed into the square
hole. The sheer red: color of an opened heart

on the table, color of a vase of roses—a color
he cannot name. Red I say, rounding my arm up
& letting go at the height of it, to watch him

fixed on the way the lines of the fabric
float down around the edges of some invisible shape.
It pools there on the hardwood. & the waiting

is deafening. As if from those fibers something
will rise. I want to tell him I am no more a mother
than a magician, pulling colored scarves from a bucket,

the artful task of trying to pull words from his throat:
hand over fist, fishing out the soundless syllables,
red tongue tied to yel-low moon knotted, blue like water

—but he holds them fast between his teeth
& mutes each color with the tip of a starry hold,
even as they slide down around his face,

his mouth tied off at the corners—
& his eyes, writ with the darkness of the world
as if to say, What. What do you want from me.