Shaped by Names

You must exist somewhere
back of the trellis of the names
I give you. I keep flinging
words like blossoms over the
lattice to fill the emptiness
if you are not there.

My tongue spells out syllables
like nets to catch you where
you drift on time’s stream
that flows away from me. I search
for sounds that form a name
to bring you into the light.

I chant a rune that should
return you to the human shape
I knew, I ask you to appear.
If you are not my names for you
I am not who I was, I have
no place to go, my tongue knotted with silence.