Semantics

I used to believe in words
sky, truth, mother, water, freedom.
But try as I might,
I can no longer touch these—
water runs off my hands.

If I touch my neck
and speak the words
I feel their weird vibration.
It’s as close as I can get
though mother sticks in my throat.

A guitar is hollow,
a resonant box.
I am mostly hollow,
mostly water,
in which I no longer believe.

The sky isn’t falling.
Truth is illusory.
Freedom is a bird
thwacking into a jet.
Water runs. Mother sticks.

In the beginning was the word
in ancient Hebrew.
The Greeks called it logos.
I call it a lie, yet, damn it,
I grip my throat and speak.