Is the sound of my loud carrying life a knell

far across your small ocean? Do you share

the secret that the months keep hidden there?

Is my past-filled pregnancy a hungry shell?

I think I will turn metal, like a bell,

so you can clapper my voice out, to where

the silent memories will echo care

and speak again. We'll sound our double spell,

swinging; we'll swing back then, to forgive

my mother's curve around the angry past—

and then her mother's. They were smothered, bound

and quiet. But we'll speak, and you will live,

tolling and striking what we know at last,

until you ring aloud with newer sounds.

From Eve