Remembering

A series of lifts, a series of holds:
breath pulling in the diaphragm
until it can't. This is one 

routine they teach you at physical 
therapy, to help the body remember, 
in certain parts, how to be 

a body again. And you remember 
the little girl who lived across 
the street, her finger caught

in sudden door-slam. 
The months she went mute, they said, 
from shock. Someone was responsible

for untangling the channels, 
coaxing the vowels back into her mouth;
listening so hard for her sound.