Taking Diction from Memory

Nancy Blouin Baxter

I close my eyes, the locusts are flying words
to my ears, a faint tickertape appears
behind my eyelids, the dictator is saying,

the horse who calls his tiny grandmother his...

Is there, is there a saint of dictation
I can wear on a chain like the Catholic
girls who don't wear jeans to middle school?
This gold-spectacled dictator, his eyes
stapled in line with his jaw--black without
whites--can't know that I'm next to getting it,
his King Alfret t-h's scratch headphone static.

heart lives in a village plagued with locusts that write...

There is a shortcut ‘round the tongue, straight to
the village. Jointed insects drop to the white
page when I shake my pencil. The dictator,
sits, legs crossed, riding crop slapping his boot
perturbed by the reflexive whispering.
His students are the many dialects
troubling parliament for solidarity:

in flamenco rhythm. The same village, yes the same,
where all the diminutives are loved...

he sends his locusts to swarm. I pluck black
music, the wooden clacks among rolled r's,
only the words are missing. For ten points,
here is the rhythm in accented x's.
(It's not much for a sentence of tapadance.)
Blue books and dictations later, I catch

the houses have windows and a single door. The sun
the color of buildings

locusts in mid-Manhattan at the UN
with my blue suit and headset. My breast bigger
but I am not tall enough for these shoes.
Catholic friends convert their careers for
babies; does that make them saints? The honored
speaker is saying, and I translate:

...the horse who calls his tiny grandmother his heart,
lives in a village plagued with locust that write
in flamenco rhythm. The same village, yes, the same,
where all diminutives are loved. The houses have
windows and a single door. The sun the color of
the buildings. Each night in the plaza fresh leaves
are hung in the trees for the guests.
Z

©CopyrightNancy Blouin Baxter