Washing the Heart of Meaning

You’ve been thinking about the sign

For sorry in American

Sign Language, which is, you have read,

Your fist rubbing in a circle

On your chest, as if you’re washing

Your heart. Setting aside, for now,

The onomatopoetics

Of iconic gestures, sketchy

As humming as if you’re a bee

In some immemorial elm,

What’s got you thinking is the word

As action rather than sound wave

Or apparently fixed pattern.

We don’t finger our boundaries

Often, as words, although units

Of meaning would be misleading.

Everything fixed is misleading,

Is neither motion nor inert,

Eternal nor purely fleeting.

Oh, the beauty of boundaries,

So necessary to your games

By which we are generated!

We’re sorry, so sorry, but we

Don’t know how we end or began.

You consider this carefully,

Unconsciously rubbing your chest.