Stutterer by Alan Dugan

Stutterer

Courage: your tongue has left 

its natural position in the cheek 

where eddies of the breath 

are navigable calms. Now 

it locks against the glottis or 

is snapped at by the teeth, 

in midstream: it must be work 

to get out what you mean: 

the rapids of the breath 

are furious with belief 

and want the tongue, as blood 

and animal of speech, 

to stop it, block it, or come clean 

over the rocks of teeth 

and down the races of the air, 

tumbled and bruised to death. 

Relax it into acting, be 

the air’s straw-hat 

canoeist with a mandolin 

yodeling over the falls. 

This is the sound advice 

of experts and a true despair: 

it is the toll to pass the locks 

down to the old mill stream 

where lies of love are fair.