When quiet whelms as blood blisters a wound

When quiet whelms as blood blisters a wound
Injury seems all the moment's meat
A hurt beyond what howling vowels can sound
Or what eons screaming might dare repeat.

There in moveless red our faces reflect
What surface tension keeps from further flow
In sudden stillness without wet defect
As if no pulse pushed wound or face from below.

Now rushing rashness rests, quiet-conquered,
And slurred cuts to coagulation tend
And silence swells like the healing word
That nurses' “shh…” and nannies' “hush” intend.

The speechlessness that first fostered wounds
Foretells flesh's restoration without a sound.