Stutter by Lorette C. Luzajic


He had a way with words, dropping them and picking them up over and over in stops and starts. You found something there, in the way he would dust them off and start again, in the staccato of syllables, the awkward alliteration, in the consonance of his vivisected vocabulary. He would raise a finger and lower his voice when he needed to summon courage to carry on, then all the words would flow into a warm river of euphony. You wanted him to read to you. You wanted him to tell you your name. How those sharper edges, the first locutions, would give way to a gorgeous tumble of idioms and appellations. You imagined his tongue would taste tart and nervous and fertile, like apples. You wanted him to kiss you, to take the words right out of your mouth.

by Lorette C. Luzajic, from Winter in June

Editor’s Note: This prose poem uses consonance, assonance, and alliteration with great skill, emphasizing both the subject matter of the narrative and the beautiful emotion of language.

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