The words
Like mother’s milk
drip into my mind’s mouth
to comfort, to nurture.

At first they are simple–even tasteless
with a sweet fattiness
made for me.

Returning each time
blow after blow
to where it all started.

Underneath the warm flow
Of words, the world
is new again.

***

Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel is the author of the following picture book titles: I’ll Fly Away, A Fish Called Tanga, Keeper of the Sky, Daughter of the House, and One More Daughter, America. She is the author of Haiti: a Cigarette Burning at Both Ends in Butterfly Ways: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States edited by Edwidge Danticat. Her short stories have appeared in the following literary magazines: Compost, African Homefront, Onyx, and Watermark. She was born in Port au Prince, Haiti in 1974. She moved to Boston at the age of ten where she was educated. She has a B.A. from Tufts University and a M.A. from the University of Massachusetts. She lives in Homestead, FL with her husband and daughter.