Semaphore to the Voices in My Head

By LeAnne Hunt

People stare at my flapping. They perhaps
misunderstand the significance of my waving
a Kleenex, usually one white and the other blue,
in an “X” to the Unseen.
They must not realize that I am attempting
to draw the Invisible. Onlookers seem to
disregard the care I use to avoid overlap,
the precision used in my invitation to transmit
and this need to relay messages to the Missing.
I am sending smoke signals to the wind, tapping out
Morse code on a casket and speaking
into a tin can with the other to my ear
and the string knotted into a noose around my throat.
My shoulders are empty of miniature angel and devil,
my compass needle spins and I snuffed out
Jiminy Cricket with a hot match. I would slit
my wrist from palm to elbow to let out the bad blood,
but am afraid I would feel only sand spilling out of my cracks.
I don’t plead for the trepanning drill to release the evil
spirits. I fear the silence.