Your Name

Heard your name today.
Came from nowhere like a
sharpened pencil,
red and shiny,
coring through my gut.
The corer, she didn’t know.
Didn’t mean to startle.
She launched it
on an outward breath,
slipped it in
to a list of
other names,
tired,
inoffensive,
soft and grey,
just another set of
forenames,
surnames looped around the
more names
always more to know
columns grown and never
noticed, then with
yours in;
your name,
that once I pressed between my lips,
once I said to others
like the corer without blame
is saying now to me;
your name.
Did you know
the one you live with,
tell to callers on the phone
write on forms, sign on emails-
did you know –
to me it’s like elastic
wrapped around a wrist