Repetition Pantoum

Repetition lays grooves in the tracks of her speech—
each pass makes the same sounds, tells the same stories.
The common room is her kingdom, the bedroom her cell.
Trembling, she calls for rescue from unseen persecutors.

Each pass produces the same sounds, the same stories.
Sometimes she cries for her sister or her lover, both long dead.
Trembling, she calls for help—who's coming for her?
Like a leaf, she slides under the covers.

She cries out for her sister or her lover, both long dead.
She doesn't believe that they couldn't hear her.
She is thin as a leaf slipping under the covers.
Are the sheets cool as satin, is it her wedding night?

She doesn't believe that the dead can't hear her.
Don't they live in the air, in dappled shadow, in water?
Who lay with her on satin sheets, who wed her?
Fish in the shallows, moths in the net of a lamp.

Don't the dead live in the air, in dappled shadow, in water?
The common room is her kingdom, the bedroom a holding cell.
Fish in the shallows, moths that line the net of a lamp—
Tracks that repeat in the mind and the groves of her speech.