Secret languages

Emma Heldman

it’s like I’m drifting
on the tops of buildings,
flowers underneath my
feet in rows that spell
abstract words of anything I
used to mean to anyone.
the candles light themselves.
I am on fire again,
in ways I can’t discern against,
like stepping up a ladder
into the unknown.
a walkway to the
flowers that spread
out all of the languages
I used to understand,
like foreign languages
the kind you share with
closeness and hunger.
circles have grown into
stars and I am still
deciphering the leftover
flowers and hunger and walkways.